


Five Things That Don't Change Once They Start Dating (And One That Does)

by nubbins_for_all



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, because COME ON GUYS, i just needed more than there was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:16:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4297380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubbins_for_all/pseuds/nubbins_for_all
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course it's totally normal to work together for eight years before becoming a couple, right? That doesn't mean there's nothing new to discover...although it must be admitted, some things never change. Jake and Amy realize that just because they're "Jake and Amy" now doesn't mean they aren't still...well, Jake and Amy.</p><p>Shameless fluff with a side helping of smut, courtesy of everyone's favorite idiots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Texting

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo! I haven't written fic in a LONG time, and this is my first crack at BK99, but I've been in the fandom for a while and I'm just so desperate for Jake/Amy that I cannot, unfortunately, withstand the drought of the hiatus any longer. Hope you like it, and let me know if you do in the comments!

The problem isn’t going from being friends to dating. It’s not being partners while dating. It’s not even doing both at the same time.

The problem, Jake quickly discovers, is that in a lot of ways, he and Amy already are dating.

**1\. Texting**

It’s just that…well, he already texts Amy all the time, and that just stays absolutely the same. Like when he’s bored—

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_2 birds_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_5 birds_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_4 birds and a dude peein_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_???_ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_Sorry i thought u said 2 text u everything i can see thru my bedroom window_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

**_Your shift starts in five hours, man. Go to sleep._ **

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

_**Or at least arrest the dude for public urination.** _

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_im off the clock, santiago_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_plus he might pee on me_

_T_ _o: BAEmy Santiago_

_r_ _emember when that lady projectile puked in ur face from like halfway down the subway platform_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago  
No._ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_i_ _think u do_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_it is certainly 1 of my most treasured memories_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_6 birds_

—Or she’s on his mind and he needs to scratch the itch by itching her—

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_how goes the stakeout_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

**_Charles agreed to turn off the showtunes, but in exchange I had to let him eat his aged turtle-meat nougat._ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_!!!!_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

_**It smells like rotten fish and Hershey’s.** _

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_i think i ate that on a dare once_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_NO!_ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_i was in the academy_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_Jake that is so disgusting. You probably still have a million parasites._ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_is that why my esoffaguss itches all the time_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_JAKE YOU NEED TO GO TO A DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’VE JUST LET THIS SLIDE UNTIL NOW! I SWEAR TO GOD I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU IF YOU DON’T GET THIS CHECKED OUT!_ **

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_AND THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SPELL ESOPHAGUS!_ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_ah…thats the stuff_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_What???_ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_telling obvious lies just 2 watch u flip out never gets old_

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_…I don’t like you. At all._ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_u were desperately worried 4 my health and my spelling just now_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_thats what i call it when u LIKE-LIKE some1_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_santiago style_

—Or, on rarer occasions, when he wants to feel something but can’t do it on his own.

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_yo sup_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

**_Not much, watching an L &O rerun. You?_ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_jus chilliiiiiiiiiin, u kno_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

_**…cool.** _

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_yeah_

_T_ _o: BAEmy Santiago_

_m_ _y mom is in surgery_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

_**What?** _

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_s_ _he found a lump in her left breast and its like nbd but they cant get it without general anessthesia or whatevs so shes in surgery and im just chillin waitin 4 her_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

**_Jake, I’m so sorry. That's awful._ **

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_i mean its fine it just sucks cuz my aunt is in phoenix and my mom didnt want me 2 tell her or any1 else in the family so like_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_wat do i do if something happens 2 her ykno_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_imagine me telling my fuckin dad. thatd be fantastic_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_she will probly be fine but surgery puts stress on the body and i just think like she works a lot of hours still, her body is tired already_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

_**Do you want company? Because I can leave right now and drive over there. I can bring cards or something.** _

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_no i dont feel like seeing faces rn u kno_

_To: BAEmy Santiago_

_do u mind texting_

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

_**Of course not. I’ll be here all night.** _

_**From: BAEmy Santiago** _

**_We can do this._ **

**_From: BAEmy Santiago_ **

**_Son._ **

She texts him too, mostly with personal gripes or little victories in the course of her day; sometimes she’ll send him pictures of Die Hard references that pop up at her crime scenes, or an update to one of their in-jokes. It’s hard to name the effect of these texts from her, but all he can say is that the day passes so much faster and everybody seems so much less annoying when Amy is writing to him from somewhere out in the city.

The point is, they don’t have to feel out those boundaries, “how much is too much” and “what do you need to feel appreciated,” because honestly, they were already texting way more than Jake does with his other friends. He used to justify with the argument that a) Amy is a female friend who b) isn’t mysterious and possibly an assassin like Rosa or c) way too busy with Twitter to reply to texts like Gina. She rolls her eyes and snaps at him and occasionally sends him small essays on the soul-killing nature of a misfiled zoning complaint, but spending the day corresponding with Amy Santiago is partly what helps him get through it.

But once they move from “friends” to “couple”, and Jake puts on the Attentive Boyfriend Hat (complete with the Don’t I Look Serious Vest and Debt, What Debt Corduroys), it gradually becomes clear that the Hat is, for once, unnecessary. Instead of limiting himself to midnight-texting Amy every few nights, he just takes off the leash and lets it become a regular ritual. Amy’s sense of humor seems to have expanded into wider and much dorkier territory, until Jake realizes that she’s no longer editing her jokes for his benefit.

Dating doesn’t change their texting game on the outside...

Although if Jake is honest with himself, every time he hears the chime from his phone and sees her name pop up on the screen, another little firework goes off in his chest.


	2. Backstory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 :) More fluffy/sexy timez forthcoming in the next chapters, especially if I get some comments!

**2\. Backstory**

And they already know way too much about each other’s personal lives.

And each other’s histories.

Like, way too much.

It goes beyond Amy knowing that Jake once had dead-guy sex with the hot coroner (twice, actually—okay, three times, WHO’S COUNTING), or Jake knowing that Amy played French horn in high school and keeps her old uniform in a sealed garment bag under the bed. Sharing a desk cluster since 2007—eight years of cop talk, eight years of bad coffee and late nights and nursing bruises of all shapes and textures—means that the weirdest things have come up between them, things that Jake would usually wait months, possibly years, _possibly_ until the afterlife, to tell a girlfriend.

* * *

“You’re _kidding_ me.”

“Nope,” Jake says with a shrug, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of Hitchcock’s freshly-brewed hazelnut coffee. “My third year on the job.”

“Did the perp pull a knife on you, or—?”

“Nah, but he did land this really nasty shot right here.” Jake taps his solar plexus with one finger. “Middle-knuckle punch, and he was wearing rings.”

“Ouch,” Amy hisses, her hand tightening around her own cup of coffee. It’s almost midnight on a Thursday, they have four perps on a drug bust sitting in holding, and a clerical error in processing has the entire precinct backed up and killing time. Amy’s hair is down, spilling over one shoulder as she perches on the back of her chair with her chin propped on one fist. Jake has his feet up on the desk, partly to relieve the stress on his knees and partly because Captain Holt hates it.

“Yeah, ouch. Just one of my many war-wounds,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. Amy rolls her eyes.

“It’s hard to pull off the hard-boiled-cop schtick when you start the story with ‘I’ve totally peed my pants on the job.’”

“Ah, but I only peed myself _after_ the guy escaped down a back alley,” Jake insists with a raised finger. “When a six-foot-eight escaped murderer punches you in the chest and you don’t immediately lose control of your bladder, it’s a win.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” she says, but the corners of her mouth quirk upwards before she can hide them by taking a sip of coffee.

“What about you?” Jake asks, scratching the back of his neck. “I refuse to believe that a lady such as yourself hasn’t soiled the uniform breeches once or twice.”

“Um, _no_.” Amy wrinkles her nose. “I’ve never wet myself, thanks. Although…”

“Here it comes.”

“I did once give Captain Holt diarrhea…”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”

* * *

See, swapping horror stories is just part of being a cop. Jake’s never dated a cop before, and he’s definitely never dated anyone he’s worked with (unless you count that cute patrol officer who transferred to the Nine-Nine for a few months, though that situation was less “dating” and more “occasionally fucking on his massage chairs until she got back together with her ex-girlfriend”). He’s not used to a girlfriend who doesn’t find his job either fascinating or frightening, much less one who knows how to do it almost as well and (not that he would ever admit it out loud) sometimes better than he can.

At one point, when they’ve been together for almost four months and Amy is lying in his bed, wearing only panties and an NYPD t-shirt of his while reading a forensic science journal, Jake asks her about Teddy.

“Did y’all talk about cop stuff?”

“Hmmm?” she mumbles, turning a page. Her hair is pulled back in a simple braid, and a hickey from last night is peeking out from beneath the neck of the shirt. Jake briefly debates whether he should repeat his question or jump her; since he’s only halfway through his bowl of Ben & Jerry’s, he decides on the former.

“You and Teddy, did you guys, like, tell each other cop stories and get all competitive and talk shop? Y’know, when you were together-ish?” He pokes her with his foot this time, and she looks up at him now, her glasses sliding a little down her nose.

“You’re asking whether my ex-boyfriend and I.”

There seems to be a period at the end of that statement, so he responds. “Yeah.”

“Used to ‘talk shop.’”

“Uh-huh.”

“When we were ‘together-ish.’”

“Yeah. Like, did you tell him the cheese wheel story?”

“What? God, no!”

“Why not? That’s like, one of the best cop stories ever!”

“Jake, I was literally covered in a pulp of camembert. It’s awful.”

“Any rational human loves that story.”

“I don’t know, it’s not the kind of thing we talked about.” She narrows her eyes at him. “If you turn into the kind of boyfriend who obsesses over my exes, I’m going to taze you.”

He grins at her and crawls onto the bed, ice cream be damned.

“Just like that? Not even a warning?”

“That was my warning.” Amy swats him with the magazine, but her body is relaxing backwards as he nuzzles into her neck, his mouth working away to create a hickey that mirrors the one on the other side. One hand dips down the back of his shirt and scratches gently at his shoulder blade. “Remember when you and Charles went after that ham thief and Charles got covered in deli food?”

“I don’t feel bad,” Jake murmurs, his fingers searching up underneath her shirt for the curve of a breast. “If Charles has to go, facefirst into gourmet egg salad is how he’d want to do it.”

Amy would laugh, but her mouth is doing other things.

* * *

It’s not only their professional lives and related adventures; whether by accident or on purpose, slowly but steadily, Jake and Amy have found out where each other comes from. Amy gleans the information about Jake’s life from a lot of offhand comments that fall like a light and bitter rain over the years: his mom has worked as a nurse since before he was born, his father left when Jake was seven, his mother miscarried a little sister at some point, Jake has been working steadily since the age of fifteen, the only girl he ever really fell for (before her, are the unsaid words) was named Elena and cheated on him after they’d been together for a year, and his mom currently lives in an apartment he bought her with his first year’s salary out of the academy.

Jake knows that he isn’t good at sharing things—when your dad leaves and your mom is too tired to do much more than buy groceries, there are few role models for emotional intimacy—and it both embarrasses and touches him how much Amy knows about his life without ever having been directly told. Long before they start dating, it’s clear that she listens; she remembers; she cares. He’s not trying to be falsely modest, it’s just that underneath the strutting and bravado, Jake doesn’t really expect people to notice _him_ : his work, maybe, the effect he has, but not the person at the center of it.

Amy notices him.

_Her_ life, on the other hand…well, she couldn’t keep that a secret if she tried.

* * *

“Holy capitalism, Batman! There’s not an antique teaspoon left in all of Gotham!”

Jake grabs his hair in mock-despair and pretends to swoon onto Boyle’s desk. Amy rolls her eyes and continues laying small silver spoons into individual gift boxes. Her desk is a mess of wrapping paper, ribbon, bits of holly and mistletoe, and shiny foil bows. Bags of gifts cluster around her like a small army of white plastic trolls.

“Laugh it up, Peralta. My nieces will appreciate these, even if you don’t.”

“No,” Jake says brightly, popping up from the desk. “Unless your nieces are eighty years old, senile, and obsessed with obsolete tableware, they will appreciate those not at all.”

“How many spoons this year?” Rosa asks, sitting on the edge of Jake’s desk. “Seems like your family’s always popping out more Santiago Juniors.”

“We are,” Amy sighs, not even bothering to look indignant. “There’s eight nieces and five nephews. My brother Javi has a new baby girl, and Nestor’s wife just had twins.”

“We talking about twins? Terry’s got twins!” the Sarge interjects, coming up to Amy’s desk. He eyes the mass of Christmas clutter. “Any particular reason you brought all this into work, Santiago?”

“ _Yeah_ , Amy, what’s your _deal?_ ” Jake sing-songs, hands on his hips. Amy glares at him before turning her big teacher’s-pet eyes on the Sarge.

“Sorry, Sarge, but I can’t do presents at home this year. My brother Joe and his husband Harley and their son Gavin and my brother Chris and his girlfriend Nina are all staying in my apartment and there’s just no room for me to possibly—”

“How come they all stay with you?” Rosa asks. “My family hasn’t known my home address since I was fifteen.”

“I mean…I have the room.” Amy somehow manages to defensively tie another ribbon. “Also, I’m, like, smack in the middle age-wise, so I don’t have a family to work around yet, and I’m not still in my screwed-up years like my little brothers are.”

“Plus you’re a pushover and everyone loves and appreciates you for it,” Jake chimes in. Amy sticks her tongue out at him.

“So nieces get spoons, what about nephews?” Terry wonders out loud, picking up a shiny blue box. Amy pushes a bag towards him.

“Commemorative NYPD lapel tabs. They’re extremely dignified, and one day they’ll be steeped in history!”

“Sweet Jesus,” Terry mutters, while Rosa snorts and shakes her head. Amy pretends not to hear and continues wrapping.

“Does your entire family actually get in the same place for Christmas every year?” Jake pipes up, frowning. “I mean, airfare alone, that’s gotta be like, several hundred thousand dollars.”

“Math, Jake, math,” the Sarge sighs. Jake shrugs.

“Eh, I was ballpark.”

“Not _every_ year, but whenever we can,” Amy answers. “It makes my parents happy, and it means that everybody can, you know—”

“Get drunk and fight?” Rosa smirks. Amy pulls a spoon out of her hands.

“Have _fun._ I’m sure Christmas with your family is a barrel of laughs.”

“Ugh, _pass_.” Rosa wrinkles her nose. “My sister makes figgy pudding and dresses her kids up like angels. I _wish_ someone would get wasted and set themselves on fire once in a while.”

“My wife and I are taking the girls to my parents’ place out in Westchester,” Terry says, showing them all a picture of Cagney and Lacey wearing elf hats. “Last year I built them a snow palace. This year, I’m thinking more along the lines of a snow citadel. Three stories, _minimum.”_

“What about you, Peralta?” Amy hits him with a hooded look. “Hot date with the back half of a reindeer?”

“God, Santiago, _one_ time! And let me remind you, she had only just appeared on an SNL holiday sketch, thus her ensemble!” Jake ignores the general snickering. “For anyone who’s _actually_ interested, I’ll be having an early dinner with my mom and then grabbing a beer with some academy buds. Simple, sweet, silent night. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some real work while Santiago continues to make children question why Santa hates them.”

Jake hops off the table and heads towards the evidence locker, while Amy rolls her eyes and keeps tying bows. Later, when Jake gets home, he’ll find a small box perfectly wrapped and tied with a red ribbon in his bag; the card will quote _Die Hard II_ and inside will be a small toy globe, filled with candy. The candy will be gone in a day; the globe becomes a permanent fixture on his desk.

There’s something else in the box too. Next time they have to wear dress blues, Amy catches a glimpse of something new on Jake’s chest: beside the nameplate, medals, and tags, she spots a small, shiny, commemorative NYPD lapel tab.

* * *

There’s not much Jake doesn’t know about Amy, and the same is true in reverse. The fact that she can still surprise him is what makes dating her so…exciting.


	3. Clothing

**3\. Clothing**

Now, let’s get one thing straight. Jake Peralta is a snappy dresser. Jake Peralta wears a dope-ass tux and makes Pierce Brosnan cry (not Sean Connery, though, because Sean Connery is too manly for tears). Jake Peralta can and has rocked plaid, vinyl, leather, cotton, polyester, and, Rosa be damned, the occasional denim jacket.

Jake Peralta has _style._

That being said, Jake will fully admit that he has his off days. Hey, you don’t become the best detective in the precinct by spending more time on your ensemble than your work, right? Which is exactly what he says to Captain Holt during the early days of Tie Wrangling, and when he occasionally comes in wearing a stained shirt, and that one time when his sneakers caught on fire and he kept wearing them after Rosa dumped her Sprite all over his feet.

Amy is always much more put together than Jake. Her seemingly endless supply of form-fitting pantsuits, tasteful blouses, and severe yet flattering hairstyles are as much a fixture of the Nine-Nine as the fluorescent lighting and the cloudy glass in the windowpanes. When Gina was first hired, she made snide comments about Amy’s outfits all the time (“Hey Santiago, Geraldo Rivera called, he wants his blazer back,” “I wonder what Amy’s face looks like when it’s not being stretched to capacity by her hairdo”), but eventually even she got bored of making the same observations twice. Amy is consistent, purposeful, as well-defined and functional as her clothing is designed to be.

For years, they’ve sat opposite each other, like the set-up for a comedy sketch called “Trashy and the Neat.” For years, Amy has wrinkled her nose whenever Jake picks dried food off his pants and Jake has clicked his tongue like a horse galloping as Amy walks by in her chunky boots. Just another Peralta-Santiago back-and-forth, ragging on each other’s work clothes. And if Jake turns his head amidst the amused snickers to eye Amy’s ass in those tight pants; if Amy stares a little too long at Jake’s arms when he rolls up the soda-soaked ends of his sleeves; if there’s a little ogling thrown in with the mocking, so be it. Run of the mill. Typical Nine-Nine.

* * *

 On their first date—their first _real_ date, where nobody lost a bet and nobody is undercover and they made actual plans to meet at an actual restaurant using their actual names—Jake makes sure to show up twenty minutes early. An outsider might think he’s being chivalrous, but when he sees Amy walk into the little Italian restaurant, wearing a short trench coat and folding her umbrella once she’s out of the light rain, he jumps up and marches over to her, smirking.

“Ten minutes early is five minutes late, Santiago.” She looks up, surprised, and the little smile on her face when she sees him knocks his breath right back into his chest.

“I said that, didn’t I?” Amy answers with a raised eyebrow. He crosses his arms and tries to look stern, but it’s hard when there’s raindrops on her face making her sparkle like a fairy princess and whatnot.

“Yes you did, missy, and I’d like to point out that while I am clearly becoming a better person through your influence, you can’t seem to practice what you—”

 _Fuck_. The words stick in Jake’s throat, and he can’t even blame her, because Amy just played a power move: she’s unbuckled the belt of her coat and let it slide off her shoulders, revealing the navy blue cocktail dress underneath that just—okay, it clings in all the right places, and it’s low-cut but not like crazy-low, just enough to make him _seriously_ interested in that area of her, and it’s off the shoulder (she’s got amazing shoulders, he knew that but wow, why doesn’t she wear more dresses like that), and she’s got this necklace that he’s seen before a million times, he recognizes it from somewhere but it looks different now, and her hair is curling softly, and she’s not wearing anything that isn’t classic Amy Santiago but the dress is new, the dress is _new_ and it’s gorgeous and Jake has been staring for a few seconds now.

“Peralta.” She’s snapping her fingers in front of him, and Jake looks up into a face full of barely contained triumph. “You were saying?”

“Um…I like the new dress,” he says truthfully, because it’s the only thing his mind can process right now. Her mouth opens slightly, and he realizes he’s caught her off-guard.

“Oh…thanks, I just—it’s not _that_ new, I bought it like a week ago, maybe—or two weeks—I don’t know, _sales_ , right?” Amy coughs and breaks eye contact, looking down his front. “Nice suit.”

“Yeah, it suits me,” he says, and they both laugh, more for the sake of something to say than anything else. Her eyes light up slightly as she looks at him.

“Hey, your green shirt.” Amy’s fingers are suddenly at his throat, fixing his collar; Jake swallows, and he can feel the warmth of her skin pressing against his Adam’s apple. “I like this one.”

“I know,” he says, again without thinking, and when her eyebrow goes up this time, he thinks, _Whatever, man, nothing to lose now._ “You said you thought I looked cute in this shirt one time, and so I was like, ‘hey, I should wear this shirt’, so…ta-da!”

Amy smiles and nods, and Jake does a little jazz-hands thing, and after a second or two they realize they’re still standing in the foyer like a pair of terribly awkward dating people, so they give Amy’s coat to the coat check (Jake already checked his) and go to get seated. Jake lets Amy walk in front of him. _Suspicions confirmed, that dress is MAGICAL._

* * *

Here’s the thing, though: Jake is used to girlfriends seeing him in work clothes. He’s used to women finding his gritty-cop image enticing, or intriguing, or just kind of gross-sexy (he’s not stuck up, he’ll take what he can get). And having worked with Amy for so long, he knows full well that she’ll go on dates straight from work—throw on some lipstick, maybe a little mascara, let her hair down and bam, Casual Santiago is ready to mingle. When you’re a cop trying to have a social life, walking around with a spare change of clothes all the time isn’t really an option.

But then there’s the other side of being a cop, the side significant others never see: the double-shift, dead-fish, no-more-coffee, why-did-I-choose-this-profession way of living that turns the best-looking cops into shriveled, sun-starved zombies. And that, baby, is where Jake and Amy _live._

After all, they are the two best detectives (and the two second-best detectives) in the unit. They work hard to earn their stripes, and that hard work has a price. Like when Jake blows the whistle too early and everyone is locked into the precinct for forty-eight hours: Jake gets to see Amy wandering around bra-less in a XXXXXL Confederate flag shirt, and Amy gets to smell Jake after two days in the same pair of clothes. Or when they catch a burglary ring case that drags on for weeks and Jake keeps putting off a haircut so he starts to look like a “teenage Bar Mitzvah DJ” (Gina’s words) and Amy lives in her glasses and eventually starts wearing clogs to work.

Those are dark times. Those are secret, awful, terrible times in the lives of detectives, when the only people who can stand to be around you, and whom you can stand to be around, are other detectives, because they’ve been there too. Jake and Amy will make fun of each other about pretty much anything, but when they’re in the crunch, there’s a base level of respect at hand. After all, they do it for the job—the job that nobody else will do.

* * *

A long dinner turns into a walk through the rain-washed streets, which leads them back to Amy’s apartment, where she invites him up for coffee (and punches him in the shoulder when he wiggles his eyebrows and goes, “Oh baby, caffeinate me all night long”) and then they actually do end up with cups of decaf Colombian dark roast, sitting on Amy’s couch, talking about why perps always run away (“Stupid Michelle Obama! Childhood obesity was our only hope to control America’s rising criminal generation!”).

Amy’s shoes are on the floor and her legs are folded underneath her on the couch; as she laughs and takes a sip of coffee, Jake’s eyes dip down and trace the shape of her calves, smooth and golden-brown. _She’s shaved her legs for tonight_. He shifts in his seat.

His eyes flick back up and he realizes he did it again: stared a second too long, let the silence linger so that she’s noticed. This time though, she doesn’t snap her fingers or smirk at him. Her eyes are dark, one hand loosely clutching the hem of her dress, the other setting the coffee mug down on the end table behind her. Amy’s mouth is open very slightly, and Jake swears he can feel the warm puff of her breath on him from across the couch. He swallows and sets his own mug down on the runner table at the back of the couch.

The rain is starting again outside, but it’s harder now, stormy, the air like shower steam and the sky rumbling over Brooklyn. His shirt feels way too thick, too hot, his tie is choking him, her dress is slipping even farther off the shoulder as she shifts forward in her seat, and Jake is not a guy who deals well with tension, so he does what he knows how to do: he opens his big mouth.

“So, I was talking to Holt—”

Thank God for Amy, who doesn’t even pause but swoops forward and presses herself against him, sinks a hand into his hair, fits their mouths together into a kiss that is hot and open and grasping and _total_. Jake’s eyes are shut and he’s moving backwards, her momentum carrying them both so that he’s falling back against the arm and pillows of the couch with her on top of him, and his hands are on her waist, her ass, the back of her neck, stroking her ribs through this amazing dress, and _wow_ , this is the fourth time Jake has kissed Amy Santiago in his life but it could be the last thing he ever does for all he cares, because it is so. Damn. Good.

“Good” doesn’t quite cover it. Amy kisses with her whole body, something Jake suspected but could never have really imagined before now: the way her fingers are tugging gently at his hair and also scratching like a whisper along the side of his neck; the undulation of her body against his (“undulation,” what a great word, he’s so glad he learned it for some case involving a murdered stripper so that he can now use it in reference to making out with Amy Santiago) as her breasts press in and away and in again right below his collarbone; the way she moans in the back of her throat and then gasps a muffled exclamation into his mouth, dragging noises out of him--low, growling, whining noises, the kind that people in control of themselves don't make; the pressure of her knee between his legs as she straddles his thigh, and every thirty seconds or so she _grinds_ down like a God damn tease, and the truth of the matter is that Jake is going to have to summon his go-to images of Charles’ thong in his see-through summer suit and lots of angry old charity Santas beating each other up if he’s going to keep it together and not…arrive without warning.

Amy is breathing hard into his mouth, and then suddenly she’s gone, and Jake chases her mouth like a lost puppy—he truly has no pride left—but she’s pulled back, hair mussed, eyes wild, and her hands start to work on his tie. Jake shudders and forces himself to take a deep breath, because women taking his tie off is, like, a _thing_ for him, and Amy Santiago straddling him on a couch while yanking his tie out of its knot and pulling it out of his collar is far closer to the fulfillment of a personal fantasy than is perhaps bearable.

Her hands are back now, picking at his shirt buttons, and Jake’s like, _Fuck it, she’s not having all the fun,_ and he reaches behind her to find the zipper on that dress, but _GOD DAMN IT_ , the back of the dress is smooth, and his hands are frantically searching and poking and plucking at the fabric, until Amy leans in and whispers breathlessly, “It’s on the side.”

Jake doesn’t need any prodding: he runs his hands roughly down Amy’s ribs, finds the tab of the zipper, and yanks it down, nearly getting it stuck in the lace of her bra (black lace, _YES, AMY SANTIAGO, GOOD CALL)._ He struggles for a moment with the little hook at the top of the dress, cursing women’s clothing and how it exists only to make his life more difficult, and then finally the top half of the dress is peeling down Amy’s body and for the first time in eight years, Jake is seeing Amy Santiago in a completely new way.

And just like always, she’s knocking him out with beautiful she is.

Jake takes his time on her body: the flats of his palms sliding over her stomach and back, working his fingertips into her ribs, kissing over the tops of her breasts and her shoulders. It’s not his usual style at all, but in this case, it’s the first time he’s ever seen her like this—so exposed, so wide open, so soft and warm. When she gets his shirt off, she seems to have the same idea, and before pulling the white t-shirt underneath over his head, she lifts it up and actually rubs his tummy first, her forehead resting against his. When they kiss again, it’s not so hurried and desperate; this time, they make eye contact, and then Jake moves forward right as Amy drops her head, and they wrap their arms around each other, and it’s like another hello, like letting out a long, deep breath that neither of them realized they had been holding the whole night.

* * *

It’s not the first time they’ve seen each other half-naked.

What was supposed to be a small-time drug bust ends up involving the Fire Department and two ambulances when a meth lab explodes during the raid and the building collapses. There are no causalities, and only one uniform is seriously hurt (Officer Padmore has a broken wrist, she’ll be okay in a few weeks), but everybody who was caught in the initial collapse has to be checked out by the EMTs on the scene.

“I’m fine! Seriously, just—you should go check on Rogers, he was way closer to the blast radius,” Santiago protests as an EMT checks her pulse. Jake breathes deeply into an oxygen mask and smiles to himself when he remembers Amy in the middle of the crumbling stairwell, yanking Boyle backwards as a chunk of cement smashed into the spot where he’d been standing a half-second ago. He’s sitting in the back of an ambulance, waiting for his oxygen levels to go up before being examined again. They’re all covered in dirt and dust and grime, like a tribe of mole people who crawled out of a sewer for a nighttime vacation.

“Pulse is high, but that’s normal. Any pain in your lower back or ribcage?” the EMT asks, dropping Amy’s wrist. She shakes her head, but the movement makes her wince and hunch forward, clutching at her right side.

“N—no…”

“Right,” the guy says, not even bothering to conceal his eyeroll. “Would you mind removing your shirt, Detective, I have to do a quick exam. We can shut the ambulance doors if you want.”

“Um…it’s fine, whatever, just get it over with.” Amy tries to yank her shirt off, but the injury in her back makes it difficult, so the EMT has to help her. Jake averts his eyes, but there’s nothing else to look at except firetrucks and Marshall Boone being an asshat—Rosa and Charles are on the other side of the scene, briefing the Sarge—so he glances over at Amy again. She’s wearing only a black sports bra now, her face set in a grimace as the EMT pokes and prods at her lower back. Jake’s stomach turns a little, and he considers getting up to ask the guy if he’d like to find someone else’s business to mind.

“Hey there, champ,” says a friendly voice, and Jake turns to see his own EMT buddy, a cheery blonde lady about five feet tall. “Ready to be examined so we can get you out of here?”

“Ten-four,” Jake huffs, and she laughs.

“Great. Can you just lift up the back of your shirt so I can get some breath sounds—actually, if you don’t mind, just take the whole thing off, ‘cause I’ll be coming around to the front too. If anything hurts or you see blood, let me know.”

“Sure, no problemo. One shirtless cop, coming up.” Jake whisks off his shirt and grits his teeth as the cold stethoscope presses into his back. His eyes flick back to Amy, who is still suffering through her own exam; but this time, she’s looking back at him. They make eye contact, and after a moment she shrugs ruefully and sticks out her tongue. He makes a low gurgling noise and mimes tearing at his chest with his fingernails. She smiles. The stethoscope doesn’t feel so cold anymore.

“What’s that, champ?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry.”

* * *

There’s no sex that night. They make out for a while, turn on _Law and Order_ at some point, and end up falling asleep on the couch, Jake still shirtless and Amy’s bra on the floor but her dress zipped back up. Jake wakes up around two a.m. and wonders whether he should slide out from underneath her and go home. Tonight was amazing, and he doesn’t want to risk stumbling at the starting line by making this awkward.

Amy mumbles in her sleep and curls her fingers into the top of his pants. She’s drooled a little on his shoulder. Her hair is a mess, her body is soft and sagging against his, and the blue cocktail dress is the color of the rain outside.

Jake settles back down and wraps an arm around her waist. They can make this work. They can do anything. They’re Jake and Amy.


	4. Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while since I posted. The chapters keep getting longer and I guess i'm trying to add more sexy times to each one? For the benefit of the populace? I don't know, just winging it. Let me know how you feel, plus or neg, in the comments!

**4\. Food**

As far as Jake is concerned, the body is a temple. And everyone knows that you fill a temple with stuff you worship, right? Well, he worships Cheetos, and gummi bears, and ice cream sandwiches, and peanut butter cups, and tater tots, and beer, and cheeseburgers, and Chinese takeout, and meat supreme pizza. His temple is the funnest, most delicious temple ever.

It’s also not his fault that he’s always had a lightning-fast metabolism, and so none of his beloved junk food ever seems to sit long on his bones. Gina used to hate him for it, especially during her chubby phase. Back when she was thirty pounds heavier and hadn’t discovered dancing, she used to show up at Jake’s apartment with a gallon of ice cream or a box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese and make him horf it all down while she watched. “Make” being an interpretative term, of course.

The squad mocks him, but they accept his eating habits. After all, he’s not as gross as Scully, who will sometimes lick bacon grease off tin foil, or Charles, whose “refined” tastes can cause incontinence for days on end. Every once in a while, Terry will corner him and force a bag of baby carrots or some steamed broccoli down his throat, but for the most part, Jake showing up with a donut for breakfast and a piece of chocolate cake for lunch doesn’t bother anybody.

Except for Amy.

The pure tonnage of sugar and grease that Jake consumes daily gives Amy the creeps. It bugs her, it pisses her off, because she keeps waiting for him to go into a coma or just dissolve into a puddle of blue raspberry chemicals, and instead he keeps beating her on precinct arrest numbers, and it _kills_ her. (He knows it too. That’s the kicker).

How is he allowed to keep his edge when he treats his body like a trash can? When Amy was a kid, she built up muscle scrapping for Go-Gurts and her mother’s meatballs, because with seven brothers, Abuela, and the dog, there was never any guarantee that everyone would get their fair share. She eats to _win_ , just like she does everything else. Jake eats to destroy his arteries. He still manages to arrest bad guys and look good doing it. It’s not fair.

Then again, she can’t _really_ judge, not that much. In a perfect world, Amy would _always_ eat well. Her protein, carbohydrate, fat (saturated and unsaturated), fiber, and vitamin intake would be impeccably balanced. Every day, a different home-cooked meal, perfectly sealed into a cute little Tupperware and stashed in the squad freezer. If Amy had her druthers, that’s how she _would_ live.

But she’s a cop, damn it, and her career is way more important than buying groceries or measuring calories, so Amy Santiago does what she does best: she prioritizes.

* * *

“I think this used to be a lemon.”

“No way.” Amy frowns at the hardened brown lump in Jake’s hand. “It would have to be, like…”

“Fossilized?” Jake grins from ear-to-ear. Amy rolls her eyes and snatches the ex-lemon from him, tossing it into the kitchen trash. “Hey, what’re you doing? The Natural History Museum would pay good money for that!”

“Ha ha ha, go get the menus from behind the microwave,” she orders him, flicking the side of his head with his finger. Jake squeals in protest.

“This is completely unfair. _You’re_ the one with an empty fridge and _I’m_ the one being punished? Way to project onto me, Ames.”

“It’s not completely empty!”

“A bottle of Chardonnay, four soy sauce packets, the mummified lemon, and a tube of kid’s sunscreen.” He cocks his head at her. “Part of me doesn’t want to ask.”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I remembered,” Amy says, fighting a smile. “And I usually have more in there, but the Lewiston murder and all that comstat work, I just kept my takeout in the breakroom fridge and—”

“Hey, you don’t need to tell me. I’ve been living off orange soda and a bulk box of Munchkins from the Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner.”

Jake makes his way past her towards the microwave, trailing a hand over the small of her back as he passes. It’s the first night in more than a week that they’ve both been off-duty, and Amy feels comfortable enough with the whole “Publicly Dating Jake Peralta And Admitting Feelings” thing to ask him over for the night. It’s a little scary to be here, inside her apartment, and not drinking coffee post-date or making out or even getting dressed in the early morning; they’re just hanging out, domestic-stylez, like a real couple. Like they hung out before they _were_ a couple. It feels high-stakes and low-stakes and just like normal all at the same time, and Amy’s having some difficulty processing.

It doesn’t help that she’s super-hungry.

“So let’s see what we got here: Polish, Chinese, Ukrainian, Polish, Mexican, Russian, Polish—” Jake looks up at her from the bundle of menus. “Santiago, there’s going to come a point when somebody has to tell you that you have a problem with pierogis.”

“I like potatoes and I like them in dumplings, so sue me.” Amy gets two wine glasses out of the cupboard. “Chardonnay?”

“Got any beer?”

“Jake, you just catalogued the contents of my fridge. For the express purpose of pointing out how they were nonexistent.”

“Fine, fine, wine me up.” He points a finger accusingly at her face. “But in future, you better have a wide selection of brewery goods from whence I shall select my libations.”

“Your vocabulary is really coming along.” Amy hands him a glass of Chardonnay. Jake takes the glass, but before she can let go, he pulls her forward by her grip on it and kisses the smile on her face.

“I’m definitely not trying to impress you _at all._ ”

* * *

They both eat way too much takeout: all cops do, but for two people as competitive as they are, it goes to the extreme. Amy prefers Polish, Chinese, and Brazilian; Jake likes bad Mexican, good Indian, and bad Thai (Amy has tried to understand, but at a certain point she just gives up). When they first become partners, it takes a few stubborn weeks to realize that it’s pure foolishness to insist on ordering from two different places every time they need to work late nights, so both of them begin to expand their palates: Amy develops a taste for samosas, Jake gets into steamed cabbage, and they can both get down with rice in any kind of sauce. It’s a give-and-take.

After they start dating, it’s the same: just a little more take and a lot more give.

For example, Jake gets Amy to try mayo-nut-spoonsies. She refuses point-blank at first, and questions whether or not he’s trying to poison her (“Is this even digestible?”); then, watching him eat them, she is convinced that they are not toxic, but refuses to eat them herself. Weeks pass, and Jake will get up and make them during late-night _Law & Order_ marathons, or on nights that she’s working (he texts her pics of him eating them), and eventually she’s curious—at least about _why_. He tells her the genesis of this particular hybrid snack, and they share something personal, and she still won’t eat them, but she’ll kiss him after he’s had one, when before she’d always made him brush his teeth and gargle with salt water.

One night, after two beers and a long week of chasing an armed mugger, he wears her down. Braced between his legs on the couch, wearing a pair of his boxers and her mom’s Breast Cancer Walk shirt, while _Orange Is The New Black_ plays on TV, Amy tries a mayo-nut-spoonsie.

“Not as bad as I thought,” she says sleepily, and then she falls asleep on his chest.

So that’s Jake’s triumph.

Amy’s, however, is a little more…public.

* * *

“Peralta, Santiago—do you care to share with the squad why you’re both forty-six minutes late?”

“I’m so sorry, Captain!” Amy yelps, her eyes widening as she freezes beside her desk. “I thought—I must have—didn’t Gina get an email from me?”

“Oh yeah, my b,” Gina mutters, her eyes trained on her phone. “Something about the dentist and comin’ in an hour late, so I guess they’re early, gold stars all around and whatnot.”

“Ah…well, in that case, carry on.” Holt turns to retreat into his office, but hesitates when he catches sight of Jake hobbling to his desk, clutching his swollen jaw and groaning. Most heads turn as Jake sinks into his chair and tilts his head back, letting out such a loud moan of agony that even the perps in the holding cell quiet down and stare at him. Amy is the only one who seems unphased: now that Captain Holt isn’t upset anymore, she’s taken off her coat and sat primly down, booting up her computer and organizing the papers on her desk.

“Jakey? What’s got you down there, buddy?” Boyle asks, his brow furrowed in concern as he practically bounces out of his chair. Jake shakes his head a little and moans again. “Can’t talk? That’s okay, I can read your thoughts deep in the expressive pools of your eyes. Look at me, Jake, and let me into the depths of your being—”

“I thought you didn’t have a dentist,” says Rosa, punching Jake lightly on the shoulder. He squeals with pain and glares at her as she perches on the edge of his desk.

“I _dahn’t_ ,” he answers, his voice garbled. “Ahmy mahde mah gaoh.”

“I did not _make_ you do _anything_.” Amy’s head is still down, ostensibly scanning the screen of her monitor, but she can’t hide the smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “You needed to go to the dentist, I brought you to the dentist.”

“Peralta went to the dentist?” The Sarge is coming over now. “Now that’s interesting.”

“Is _nah_ ,” Jake insists, but too late: Captain Holt and Gina have their ears pricked, leaning over from the entrance of Holt’s office.

“I seem to recall your claiming with some pride that you wouldn’t go to the dentist without either a gun to your head or a personal request from Jon Snow—a confusing statement, as Mr. Snow is both fictional and not particularly concerned with orthodontia,” Holt says with a raised eyebrow.

“Please, God, I hope you met Jon Snow, that man is delicious.” Gina leans her elbow on Rosa’s shoulder. Jake is still massaging his jaw and glaring at Amy, who is doing a very bad job of pretending to check her email.

“Nah, nah, ah—dahmn aht!” Jake reaches into his mouth and pulls out two cotton balls; his cheeks immediately deflate. “I was _tricked_ into going to the dentist, because _Amy_ got all hung up on it, and they did terrible things to me because they’re evil murders of mouths and joy!” He paused, triumphant, and then clapped a hand to his jaw. _“Ooooooooooooooh…”_

“Shoulda left that cotton in, chief,” Amy chirps, still not looking up. Charles starts trying to give Jake a backrub, while Rosa just snorts and shakes her head.

“C’mon, man, you needed it. The only reason you’re so messed up is because you probably had like ten cavities.”

“Twelve.”

“Shut up, Santiago,” Jake growls, trying to elbow Charles away.

“Your teeth will thank you in the long run,” Terry says.

“Teeth are truly the cavalry in the body’s assault on sustenance,” Holt agrees. Everyone nods and hopes it looks like they know what he’s talking about.

“How does somebody get ‘tricked’ into going to the dentist, anyway?” Gina wonders out loud, tapping her phone against her own front teeth. “Seems a little obvious, like, ‘oh hey, let’s just go to this donut shop full of shiny teeth tools and people who hate their jobs.’”

“Fine, I got _bribed_ into going,” Jake says sulkily. “It was still a lowdown dirty trick that I will never forgive!”

“Oh, cry me a river, Peralta,” Amy says, finally looking up as she sends something to the printer.

“Bribed?” asks Charles. “With what?”

“God, you’re evil,” Jake whines. Amy rolls her eyes.

“Take an aspirin or something, you’re a grownup.”

“And you’re the _worst_ , Santiago.”

“Oh really?” Amy gets to her feet and pushes past Gina and Charles, heading for the printer. “Because that’s not what you were saying last night.” She stops by his shoulder, ignoring the bug-eyes of her coworkers as she gazes down at Jake. “Seemed like the dentist was worth it then, huh?”

And with that, Amy Santiago makes her exit, well-aware of all the eyes on her back and only a tiny bit humiliated that she said what she just did in front of Captain Holt. _All’s fair in love, war, and dentistry._

"Jake..." Boyle says, his eyes widening. "Were you coerced into this dentist business by Amy  _washing your hair?_ "

 

“Dude,” Rosa snorts. “You guys dating is so freaking funny.”

“Yeah.” Jake shuts his mouth, which was hanging open like a fly-trap, and clears his throat. “It is worth the stupid dentist, though.”

* * *

There is something that Amy knew before she started dating Jake. She knew it, but she never really experienced it.

Jake can cook.

He keeps it quiet, mostly because he doesn’t want people to think he like, _tries_ at anything. And also because Boyle would literally explode with joy and then move into Jake’s kitchen if he found out. But the topic came up once, on a late-night stakeout near one of Amy’s favorite restaurants, when she was bemoaning the relative closeness of a good bowl of borscht.

“That’s just red soup,” Jake scoffed, arms crossed behind his head as he leaned back in the cruiser’s driver seat. “Legit soup, like chicken noodle or minestrone or pumpkin? Now that’s worth respect.”

She pries it out of him right then and there, the story of a young boy who gets sick of making disgusting snacks and baloney sandwiches while his mother works the graveyard shift and decides to watch a cooking show or two; the sequel, about a police academy cadet who likes to grill up weekend dinners for his friends after a week of getting put through the wringer; and finally the last part of the trilogy, where a single cop occasionally cooks for himself when he’s got nothing else to do and maybe makes his mom a nice meal on their corresponding nights off from work.

He’s much better than her, that’s for certain. He can use a stove without burning everything, he can distinguish between salt and…things that look like salt, he can even bake. Usually, Amy would get competitive about something like this—she gets competitive about everything—but even she can admit that her cooking is terrible, and the first time Jake bakes her pumpkin-cheesecake muffins, she immediately decides that some things in life are worth giving up a little pride.

Their six-month anniversary is the first time Jake makes her dinner.

Before they started dating, Amy would have thought the lack of Jake-cooked meals was due to laziness; by now, she understands that it’s because he’s nervous as hell. He makes her promise to go home after her shift ends and only show up at his place when he’s had a good three hours to prepare. This does mean they’ll be eating at ten o’clock, but she’s in no rush. After all, she’s been dating Jake Peralta for six months; if she’s made it that far, she can make it to ten PM.

She smells the dinner before she sees it: garlic, butter, hint of basil, the rich aroma seeping under the door and drifting down Jake’s hallway. Amy licks her lips without thinking, her stomach gurgling in anticipation. Knowing Jake, there will be some elaborate theme or ceremony planned, and that’s fine, but she hasn’t eaten anything since that string cheese and banana nut muffin around four and it would be awesome if they could eat _before_ shenanigans.

Amy rings the doorbell. “One seeeeeeeeeeeec!” comes Jake’s voice, and a moment later he’s unlatching the door, his face shiny with sweat and framed by a particularly wild muss of hair. He’s wearing a stained apron that says “You have the right to remain sautéed” and one hand is clutching a salad tong.

“Omigod, hey, so, okay, the potato pancakes are totally done and the chicken is cooling but there’s like _no way_ I’m going to get this salad right because like, what is a salad anyway, it’s just vegetables and cheese and oil and it’s all supposed to make sense but it’s _stupid_ , Amy, it’s stupid. However, I know you like it, so I’m gonna make this salad my bitch, and I need a little more time, okay, just like, be patient with me. Also, _fuck_ this salad.”

“You made me a salad?” Amy’s heart is fluttering like she’s twelve years old and just beat Scott Morgenthau at arm-wrestling only he’s too busy making goo-goo eyes at her to be a sore loser. Jake brandishes the tong a little wildly and pushes his hair back, succeeding only in getting it messier.

“I _will_ make you a salad. I voluntarily bought vegetables and dressing, I asked Charles for advice—which is a good day and a half of my life that I will never get back, by the way—and I am trying to figure out how to make it look fancy and not like a pile of leaves, which is how it looks right now.” He bites his lip. “Can you just…like, walk around the block for another hour or something? I swear, I’ll be ready by then, midnight at the latest—”

But Amy is already pushing past him and into the apartment, which looks so different now from when Gina used to live here: no more gaudy plastic lampshades, no more fur throw pillows and bedspreads, instead a solitary massage chair and a few _Die Hard_ posters hung only a little crookedly. Her eyes are drawn to the center of the tiny living room, where Jake’s comforter had been laid out on the floor. There are two place settings set down, picnic-style, with Jake’s blue Ikea plates (she took him to buy those) and some of his plastic takeout utensils; unfamiliar, however, are the silver servings dishes that hold a roast chicken, a pile of golden-brown potato pancakes, some plump pierogis, a gleaming mound of spaghetti dotted with meatballs (one of Jake’s favorite things to make for himself), and finally, two silver candlesticks, in which unlit candles have been lopsidedly wedged.

“Are…are those yours?” she asks softly. She hears the door closing behind her as Jake reluctantly admits her.

“What, the silver? Nah, they’re my mom’s. I borrowed them, y’know, ‘cause it’s a special…I wanted everything to look good.” Jake coughs and kind of shuffles over to the kitchen nook, trying to block the giant mound of chopped vegetables from her sightline without Amy noticing. “That’s why this salad is making me old before my time. It looks like compost, Ames. Compost.”

Amy drops her bag and coat on the couch. She walks over to Jake in the kitchen and presses her hands into his chest, running the tips of her fingers under the edges of the apron. Jake frowns as she pushes him backwards, his butt hitting the counter.

“Look, I know—I know it’s not ready yet. But hey, it could be worse, right? Remember that time I was like, four hours late to pick you up from that undercover drug deal? Or when you had to wait for me to get my stuff together when we were stationed out in—”

“This is my favorite anniversary ever,” Amy says, her arms going up around his neck. Jake blinks, the frown slipping away.

“Buh—whatnow huh?”

“It looks good. It smells good. It feels good. _You’re_ good.” She’s pulling the loop of the apron up over his head. “You cooked my favorite food and you made a salad even though you hate it and you’re going crazy trying to make it look fancy—who does that?”

“…trick question?”

“ _You._ Jake Peralta does that,” she says, ignoring him as she starts to pull off his t-shirt, and she can feel how fast Jake’s heart is beating, and she doesn’t quite know where she’s going with this, but it feels like something that’s worth taking six months to say. “I don’t need the perfect salad, Jake, I don’t even know what it would look like. You know how terrible my salads are.”

“Yeah, I—” His voice breaks as she runs a hand down his bare chest, across his belly, and lets her fingers start to pull gently at his belt buckle. “Yeah, I do know that.”

“But tonight, you’re just…you’re working to make something perfect. For us.” His belt is open now. She unsnaps his jeans. “And I would so much rather work for perfect than actually have it. Because perfect doesn't mean anything. And it's boring.” She brings his hands to the top button of her blouse. Without a moment of hesitation, he undoes—practically rips off—every button, down to the hem. “Trust me, I know.”

“Yeah, totally,” Jake murmurs, sliding his shirt off her shoulders with one hand while he pulls at her tank top with the other.

“And Jake—”

“You wear too many layers.” He yanks her tank top off, and now he’s got both hands sliding under her jeans and her panties to grab her ass and pull her against him, and she’s trying not to get distracted by the half-hard pressure of his cock against her thigh.

“No, hey, wait, I was trying to say something—”

“The salad means you want to boink, I get it!”

“Jake!” She punches him in the ribs. He squeals. “The salad means I love you!”

“Ow! I mean, what?”

“Jesus, it’s like talking to a parking meter—”

“Amy, you said you love me?”

“Yes, you idiot.” She combs her hands through his wild hair and breathes an exasperated sigh. “I love you, and the salad illustrates that point. Which you would understand if you listened to me, ever.”

“You were pulling my clothes off and using your sexy-timez voice, there’s not enough blood in my brain to listen to you!”

“God, you’re unbelievable.”

“Also, I _was_ listening,” Jake insists, and suddenly his warm, wide hands are moving up her back, drawing their torsos together, and his head is ducking towards her, and he tastes like salad dressing and a hint of pierogi stuffing against her lips. Amy relaxes as she feels him trying and then finally managing to unsnap her bra, and now his hands are moving to her front, her stomach, cupping one of her breasts, and his tongue is in her mouth, hot and strong and curling, and Amy’s hips surge forward against his, where she can feel the hard, full press of his erection against the line of her pelvis, and he groans into her mouth.

“You said you want to work for it, Santiago?” he whispers, the pad of his thumb pressing at her nipple. Amy swallows thickly and squirms a little, feeling the pounding of her pulse down between her legs. She’s got one hand wound tight in his hair, the other looped under his arm and clutching at his shoulder, his breath is playing over her face and she’s light-headed, from arousal and maybe a little bit from hunger. She rolls her hips forward again, and Jake’s breath catches in his throat.

“I…I want you to make m-me…work for it…if you _can_.”

Jake’s eyes flash, and suddenly he’s flipping Amy around so that she’s got her back pressed against the counter, and his hands are going underneath her hips, lifting her up, grinding their pelvises together—his head falls back and she can’t help herself, she leans forward and bites down on his neck, sucks on the skin there, it tastes like sweat and cooking and Jake and it makes him cry out in this awesome broken way—and one hand is going down between them, yanking down his zipper and shoving his pants and boxers down to his knees, and then he’s struggling to undo Amy’s pants but she just shoves his hand away and does it one-handed herself, clinging to him at the same time, vaguely aware that there is a massive pile of vegetables and also a rather large, sharp chopping knife on the counter right behind her, but she’s aching and pulsing and wet right now and Jake has just slid a finger down into her underwear, so it’s really hard to worry about possible knife-related incidents at the present moment.

He runs the tip of his finger along her slit, gentle and teasing in the most aggravating way, and then his thumb starts a rhythmic press against her clit, and Amy shudders, letting out a breathy gasp into the crook of Jake’s neck. He pushes the finger into her, adds another, pumping slow, infuriatingly slow, Amy rocking into him and letting herself be free with the noises she makes: high, hoarse, dirty, in time to the raking of her fingernails over his shoulders.

“I will never get used to you sounding like that,” he pants into her ear, and she bites him, a little harder than necessary, on the shoulder. Jake yelps and adds a third finger, just to fuck with her, and Amy straight-up writhes, squeezing Jake’s waist so hard with her thighs that his ribs creak and burying her heels in the small of his back.

“Don’t…get…cocky…Peralta,” she manages. The look on his face is all the answer he has to give.

When she feels the edge approaching, and right around when Jake’s hand has started to cramp (by now she can read his body without even trying), Amy grabs his wrist and yanks it out of her pants. She could easily ride his fingers to completion, but as Jake has said to her many times—admittedly, right before convincing her to use a really stupid undercover disguise—where’s the fun in that?

“What’re you—oh _Christ,_ Santiago,” Jake chokes out as she frees herself from his grip and drops to the floor, a tad ungracefully but who cares, certainly not Jake, not when she’s nuzzling his cock, not when her tongue and lips are tracing the words “Happy anniversary” up and down his length, not when she sinks down onto him and hollows her cheeks, dragging her tongue backwards in that way that Amy knows makes his knees shake and—yep, there it is, that stuttering, voice-cracking exclamation as her lips tighten around the base of his cock and her thumb presses into his hipbone.

“ _A-Amy…_ f-fuck, oh, damn it, I—holy _hell_ , you—Amy, please—I—”

Truth be told, blowing Jake is one of Amy’s favorite things to do. It doesn’t matter how many shit-eating grins he sends her way after closing a case or beating her in arrest numbers, it doesn’t matter how immature or irresponsible he can be, it doesn’t even matter how much she loves him or how hard he tries to make her happy; when Amy has him dancing on a string, coming apart with his trembling hands in her hair and his hips pumping gently into her mouth, when she is so in control that she could finish him off in a moment or keep him in agonized bliss for who knows how long—well, Amy Santiago is a tough lady, and she’s learned to enjoy calling the shots.

She does take pity on him, eventually, and he clutches a handful of her hair and rasps her name one more time as his orgasm hits, his hips jerking and body bending almost in half as he comes in her mouth. Amy swallows—see: tough lady—and pets his hair when he slithers to the floor and lies in a big puddle of Jake, pants and shoes still bundled around his feet, his face all sweaty again and eyes half-lidded.

“Doin’ okay there, Jake?”

“You’re good with the mouthy sex,” Jake says sleepily, and Amy snorts. There’s very little room on Jake’s kitchen floor, with the two of them pinioned between the counter and the little island, but she doesn’t mind. It only encourages Jake to wriggle forward and put his head into her lap, like a fluffy Jewish dog.

(Or so she’s heard, since she can’t get anywhere near dogs without suffocating.)

“Hey, Ames?” He’s staring up at her, big brown eyes sparkling. Amy pushes his sweaty hair back and scratches the side of his neck gently.

“What’s up, Peralta?”

“I love you too, ‘kay?” Beneath her fingers, his pulse is pounding again, though whether it’s from emotion or just post-blowjob she can’t tell. Maybe both. “Like, I really…I mean, romantic-stylez, for real, like if I were John McClane—no wait, his marriage sucks, okay, if I were Arwen and you were Aragorn and I was like, ‘I have this magic necklace thingy and I can only give it to someone I love really truly a _lot_ ,’ I would totally give it to you. Just like that. Have my magic elf swag, Santiago, that’s how much I love you.”

He has to stop then because Amy is laughing too hard, and Jake starts laughing too, and soon she just kind of folds over and gets down on the floor with him so that they’re wrapped around each other and she says, “Thanks for trying to make me a salad, Jake.”

“Oh, hey, that reminds me.”

He goes down on her, then, for a solid fifteen minutes, and he _does_ work for it, to the extent that Amy sees stars and loses the ability to form words, lying there on that bathroom floor with Jake’s tongue between her legs.

Six months of dating and they can still blow each other’s minds (literally). Amy’s not used to this. She’s not used to relationships where the flavors stay sharp and surprising, where things continue to shift and change and fit or not fit as more time passes. It freaks her out a little. It’s far outside the Santiago sphere of comfort.

But lying there on Jake’s comforter in only her panties and his t-shirt, eating roast chicken, pierogis, and lettuce drenched in balsamic vinaigrette off of blue Ikea plates, watching Jake tie spaghetti strands together so that he can slurp three feet of noodle at once, Amy can’t help but feel happier, more comfortable, more loved, than she can remember feeling in a long time.

Or ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments will lead to Amy and Jake having pretty babies and just being idiots together forever.


	5. Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while, guys; moving into a new apartment, job-hunting, the works. But I'm dying here waiting for the summer haitus to be over, and WITH ALL THESE NEW PROMOS COMING OUT...well, my brain is overflowing a little with how much I miss our friends at the Nine-Nine.
> 
> That's my way of apologizing for the length of this chapter. I just really wanted to spend some time with all the wonderful characters we have come to know and love, while continuing to explore the Jake/Amy dynamic that is so crucial to the heart of the show (in my mind). Thoughts? Complaints? You like it? You hate it? Let me know in comments!
> 
> Love y'all for sticking with me, and for your amazing comments and all the kudos thus far. <3 <3 :)

**5\. Friends**

Before Jake and Amy become a couple, they already belong to the same family.

(Not like that. Gross.)

A family that works together, drinks together, occasionally sleeps together, and re-ranks top five 2009 episodes of _So You Think You Can Dance_ together.

A family with black dads, Latina daughters, white sons—even a younger Korean cousin who works down in IT.

A family that comes from necessity as much as it does from love.

Neither of them make friends easily. And in this business, friends keep you alive.

* * *

Jake was transferred to the Nine-Nine from the Two-Five in July of 2006. He’s in his mid-twenties, already an acclaimed officer with a long list of collars and a reputation for reciting entire scenes from  _Die Hard_  in front of any available audience—including and often limited to the perps in the holding cell. Those who don’t find him annoying resent him for making them look bad: not only patrol officers, but the detectives in the precinct too. His charm and bravado don’t play as well when they’re coming from a lowly beat cop. He doesn’t go to the bar very often, and when he does he drinks too much and struggles to laugh at himself with the rest of them.

Jake makes detective in 2007, after bringing down a group of muggers that stabbed a bunch of yuppies and stole all their expensive yoga equipment. For months afterwards, he drives everyone crazy boasting about how he caught “the Mat Bandits.” Slowly, he stops trying so hard to prove how tough he is; slowly, they begin to accept him around the precinct. His numbers stay good and his swagger is dialed down to eleven. Peralta rules the Nine-Nine.

Amy arrives almost a year later, supposedly on loan from the Gang Unit during a rash of gang-related shootings in the Nine-Nine’s district. Her partner is a gruff Pakistani man named Shahid Kambarzahi who everybody calls The Shah: he’s been in the NYPD for thirty-nine years, a bona-fide legend, and Amy idolizes him. Their work at the Nine-Nine is precise, fierce, and unrelenting—or at least, Amy is. Her ambition is obvious, her talent even more so; that and her crazy-making perfectionism drives Jake up the wall. They fight a lot: Jake scores points with the rest of the precinct by replacing all the pens in the bullpen with unsharpened pencils and hiding her green Bic sharpener.

After a successful bust, The Shah takes her out for coffee and, in the Bronx accent that’s replaced his native one, tells her Captain McGinley has offered him the vacant spot on the Nine-Nine’s detective squad. “But I’m too fucking old and I haven’t seen my grandkids in too fucking long. I got one more year in Gang and then I’m retiring. You take the job.”

He sips burned black coffee and waves a rough hand to shut off Amy’s stream of shocked babbling. “Smart young kid like you, it’ll be fine. Just cut out all that petty shit with Peralta.” The Shah narrows his eyes at Amy and his mustache bristles a little. “You’re a woman, you’re brown, and you’re in the NYPD. Guys like him are used to floating through life, and they’ll float their asses right into a Command. Don’t give turds like him a reason to screw with you before you’ve earned what’s yours.”

It takes more than a year for Amy to trust Jake: every time she looks at him, she sees the kind of man The Shah warned her about, the kind of man she’s already encountered in school, in the academy, everywhere. And when Jake looks at her, he sees what he sees when he looks at everyone who’s good at his job: a threat.

But as time goes by, each of them becomes somebody that the other doesn’t already know and suspect. They become Jake and Amy. They become friends.

* * *

Rosa arrives at the Nine-Nine in early 2008, fresh off a promotion to detective. She makes it extremely clear that she has no new-badge jitters, no self-doubts, and no interest in getting to know people.

She already knows Jake, though—academy bonds last a lifetime—and on her first week in the Nine-Nine, the squad goes out to Shaw’s and she drinks him under the table. Amy, desperately toeing the line between “chill” and “neurotically responsible”, is the last one at the bar, trying to heave a sloshed Jake off the floor so he can get into a cab and hopefully avoid whatever horrible infections a person gets from lying in a pool of Jager for an hour. Like the vampire she is, Rosa suddenly appears out of the shadows; a moment later, she’s got Jake’s feet, Amy has his shoulders, and they’re heaving him up the steps to the street.

The next day, Amy tries to make small talk with Rosa, Rosa ignores her point-blank, and Jake takes a “nap” in the evidence locker.

_Friendship._

Jake is pretty sure Rosa couldn’t care less that Jake and Amy are dating.

“I couldn’t care less that you and Amy are dating,” she tells him.

Friday night, everybody is at Shaw’s, and Jake’s halfway through his third beer while Rosa take a sip from her second whiskey-sour. It’s stuffy and humid, mid-April damp somehow seeping into the air-conditioned bar. Rosa’s leather jacket is thrown over the back of her chair, which leaves her in a plain black tank top and black jeans—what Charles calls her “Trinity, Pre- _Matrix: Reloaded_ ” look. Jake pushes his own shirtsleeves further up his arms, his tie already long gone.

“Well, it’s only been a month, but hearing that from you is a really good sign.” He raises his bottle in tribute to her. “It means we’re not as annoying as we could be.”

“Damn straight.” Diaz rolls her eyes. “I’ve been so ready to beat you up these last few weeks.”

“Beat me up? Why?”

“Because you’re a doofus and when you’re psyched about something you usually get excited and doofus-y and drive us all nuts.”

Jake splutters into his beer. “ _When_ have I _ever_ —”

“Wrote a rap about the rims you put on your car, broke the coffeepot by crashing into it with your wheely shoes, yanked us all into your demented Halloween bets with Captain Holt—” She ticks them off on her fingers, one by one. “Turned the break room into a black light rave at eleven a.m. on a Wednesday, melted all the ice cream in the kitchen fridge because you wanted to ‘freeze the bubbles back into your soda’—”

“Okay, but in my defense, you were totally into like half that stuff,” Jake insists. Rosa shrugs.

“Maybe.” She takes another sip of whiskey and nods at Amy, who is currently holding her own in a game of pool against Hitchcock and Boyle. “Santiago ate that shit up, you know.”

“What? No she didn’t,” Jake scoffs. “Remember that memo she sent out about how black lights can cause melanomas?”

“Nah, she was always into it,” Rosa says, shaking her head. “It’s like she gets off on all your immature loony-tunes.” Suddenly, Rosa’s eyes narrow, and she’s leaning in towards Jake, swirling the whiskey in her glass. “Speaking of getting off…”

“No way, forget it.” Jake crosses his heart. “I am a gentleman and thusly honor-bound to refrain from discussing the private details of the bedroom, ipso facto, heretofore, don’t ask me about it, e pluribus unum.”

“She’s got you so scared of her, doesn’t she?”

“Terrified.”

“Nice.”

Jake glances over at the pool table, then leans in a little as well. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d _like_ to talk about it…I’d like to _brag_ about it…”

“Aaaaah ha ha,” Rosa cackles. “Now you _have_ to tell me. Come on, is she a screamer? Kinky? No, wait, I know—roleplay.” She widens her eyes and speaks in her horrifying impression-of-Amy-slash-psychotic-murder-clown voice. “Oh, Mister Peralta, your audit is so _thorough_ and _efficient_ , just take me right here on this volume of IRS tax codes—”

“Stop. Forever stop that, oh my God," Jake begs, feeling a little queasy. He drains the rest of his beer and casts another furtive look over to where Amy is currently sinking a corner shot. “Okay, I _will_ tell you that it’s…enjoyable.”

Rosa is staring at him the way she stares at perps who claim they didn’t even _know_ there was a severed leg in the trunk of their car.

“Fine,” Jake clears his throat. “Santiago has what you might call a talented tongue.”

“Ha!” Rosa thumps her glass on the table and Jake jumps. “I totally called that. The whole eager beaver thing at work, those are the ones who give killer head.”

“Not just at work,” Jake says before he can stop himself, and Rosa’s face breaks into a grin before she starts laughing again. He grins too, a trifle sheepishly—but hey, Rosa keeps a secret better than the Pentagon, and when a guy’s girlfriend is smart and beautiful and amazing and _mind-blowingly good in the sack_ , it’s hard not to take a victory lap even once.

“No way, not Saint Santiago.”

“Rosa, you don’t even _know_. I mean, you think you’ve seen Amy competitive on cases, she goes like a thousand percent harder on _me_. And my _body._ And—”

“I get it.”

“We’re talking positions, dexterity, _volume_ —I’m the screamer, by the way. Totally man enough to admit that.”

“Unsurprised.”

“It’s like we’re on a sexy adventure together, climbing a sexy mountain of sex towards Sexy Valhalla.” He pauses. “Also she’s super strong and smells like snickerdoodles. _Everywhere._ ”

Diaz snorts and flicks him in the side of the head. “Damn, and here I was picturing flannel nightgowns and tea ceremonies.”

Jake runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, the worst part is that we have to _work_ together the next day, y’know? Keeping my hands off her is so hard. Pun intended times a billion.”

“Cry me a river, Peralta.” Rosa twirls a toothpick between her fingers and looks over her shoulder at the pool table: it appears Amy has just lost narrowly to Hitchcock, who is trying to take his shirt off in celebration. “I’m glad it’s working out with you guys so far.”

“Thought you couldn’t care less, Diaz,” Jake sing-songs, stealing the toothpick. Rosa steals it back and snaps it in half.

“I couldn’t. But you’re both my friends and I’d rather you make each other happy than not, whatever.” She glares down at the table. “I didn’t want you to blow it.”

“Blow it?” Jake sits back, confused. “How would I blow it?”

“By being you, dumb-dumb. You’re ten times the doofus you normally are when it comes to Amy. I thought for sure she’d be your Woodstock.”

“What, I’d take her to a farm for three days so we could have sex and smoke weed?” Jake’s eyes widen. “Because that is actually not a bad—”

“No, you moron, I mean I thought you’d go all out for her. Y’know, crazy stunts, over the top but sweet at the same time, your classic brand of Peralta bullshit.” Rosa waves her hand in the air as though stirring a metaphorical cloud of past Peralta schemes. “But so far you don’t seem to have screwed it up. And you’re not bothering me more than usual. So gold star for you.”

“…Diaz thinks I’m sweeeeeeeeeeeet.”

“Shut the fuck up, Peralta,” she growls, and kicks him in the shins.

* * *

Boyle was actually transferred to the Nine-Nine the same year as Jake, but he doesn’t make detective until 2009. It surprises everybody: the nervous little nugget of a cop who prefers grilled goat brain to grilled cheese doesn’t seem the type to jump ranks.

But as it turns out, Boyle has been staying late every night (bringing his panini press in for company) and poring over case files, following up leads, researching cold cases—just grinding away in what quickly becomes his trademark manner. When five of those dead and cold cases break wide open due to Boyle’s diligence, it’s not long before he’s got his own desk, his own nameplate, and a terrible case of stagefright.

Jake was nice to Charles when they were both on patrol: nice, and nothing more. But when he sees the little guy shaking and sweating through his first afternoon briefing, Peralta decides that it’s not going to be as difficult for Charles to win acceptance as it was for him. He invites Boyle out for lunch; Boyle, two days on the job, is starstruck by the hotshot detective who’s recently topped the social pyramid. To help him loosen up, Jake lets him choose the restaurant—out of ignorance, out of kindness, out of folly.

Charles picks a Serbian place, and they both get terrible stomach cramps from eating what Jake thinks might have been pickled crow. But that day, while Jake talks twice as much in order to avoid eating, Charles grins that wide-open Charles-y grin and says it for the first time.

“You’re the best, Jake.”

_Friendship._

Charles insists on planning Jake’s thirty-fifth birthday party a full month in advance. At this point, Amy has been dating Jake for about five months, and before that she was friends with both him and Boyle for _six years_. She imagines this can only get so ridiculous.

“How about…pelicans!” Charles waves his hands in the air and makes a cawing noise. “At least fifteen glorious pelicans, released over the Hudson River, accompanied by a twenty-one gun salute, at the exact moment that a tugboat pulls a refurbished barge—very tasteful, lots of damask and draperies, perhaps a splash of freesia—up to the shoreline, and who should be standing on it but _you_ , clad in white and singing the theme song to Jake’s favorite childhood TV show, _Thundercats!_ ”

Amy takes a moment to consider this proposal. She and Charles are sitting at her desk around ten in the morning, the precinct in full bustle around them. Jake is out on a case with Rosa, and Charles has sent Amy a total of twenty-four texts reminding her about their “emergency secret strategy sesh,” or ESSS—which, by the way, is written on the cover of his three-subject notebook. (Amy worries that all of her binders may have had the wrong influence.)

“Okay, well, first of all, I don’t actually know the theme song to _Thundercats_ ,” she begins. Charles nods and leans forward, his eyes wide and almost disturbingly eager.

“You could learn it, though. Or wait! What about we get a full orchestra to play the _Die Hard_ soundtrack while you rappel down the Empire State Building wearing a dress made of Fruit Roll-Ups, and then Jake grabs you in his muscled arms and all the fire hydrants explode at the same time, and I say—” Charles does the Bruce Willis impression that he’s not allowed to do around Jake anymore. “‘Welcome to the party, pal!’ …get it? Because—”

“Wait, where are you in this scenario?” Amy interrupts.

“I’m descending from the heavens in a hot air balloon, dressed exactly like the Wizard of Oz from Jake’s favorite childhood movie, _The Wizard of Oz_.” Charles scoffs. “God, Amy, keep up.”

“Hey, Boyle, listen…” Amy recalls her most recent mediation seminar and tries to use “I-statements.”  “I think it’s amazing that you want to do so much for Jake, and I know that your friendship means the world to him.”

“Aw, thanks. Jake’s the best,” Charles replies happily.

“But… _I_ think that instead of something this—extreme, Jake might like a party that’s a little more low-key. Definitely super-fun and epic and all that he deserves,” she adds quickly, seeing the look on Boyle’s face. “But maybe less explosions and orchestras and me singing or um, wearing food, and more…pinball. And beer. And the chance to do Taylor Swift karaoke without Gina stealing his mic.”

“Amy, that’s…not a bad idea.” Boyle frowns and starts writing in his notebook.

“See?” Amy keeps going, encouraged. “We can invite all his friends—”

“Yeah! You, me, Rosa, Terry, Gina—but not Derek!”

“Who’s—”

“Promise we won’t invite Derek!”

“Okay, okay, no Derek!” Amy tries to get ahold of the conversation again. “Just a group of Jake’s _real_ friends, somewhere he likes—maybe that sports bar in Hell’s Kitchen, or even at somebody’s place if it’s big enough—and we get a bunch of beer and wine, borrow a karaoke machine, buy the world’s biggest sheet cake—ooh, and we can put a picture of his face on it, I know he’s always wanted that.” Amy rolls her eyes. “Probably because he wants to make jokes about consuming the body of the Savior. Or find a way to make his mouth even bigger.”

“Amy, this is great stuff!” Boyle is furiously scribbling. “If we just make the party all about stuff Jake likes, it’ll be perfect!”

“Right, because he’ll love it,” Amy says at the same time that Boyle says, “Because he has exquisite taste and the body of a superhero!”

“That too,” she concedes, barely hiding a smile. Charles grins and starts to write something down; but a moment later, he’s frowning again. “What’s wrong, Charles?”

“I don’t know…this sounds like a great party for Jake, but it’s _missing_ something.”

“Missing what?”

“ _Something!_ That perfect touch to show Jake that he’s the greatest, most brilliant detective to ever wear clothing better than handsome store mannequins! Ooh!” Charles jabs a finger in the air. “What if we hired Hulk Hogan to entertain? He’s Jake’s favorite childhood world-wide wrestler!”

“Well, the day before his birthday, I’m taking him to a Nets game,” Amy says, shrugging. “My brother Nick is in sports medicine, he’s friends with one of the PT guys on staff, and I made him get us court-side tickets. I called in a favor and got a signed jersey too. Joe Johnson—Jake’s pretty into him.”

Silence follows her words. Charles is staring at her with a different look on his face now, one that she doesn’t quite recognize, but somehow freaks her out more than all the normal Charles looks. He’s smiling.

“I was totally right about you guys,” he says suddenly, and Amy involuntarily scoots her chair back a couple inches.

“What about us?”

“I’ll take care of the party. You just take him to the game and have fun.” Charles shakes his head and chuckles to himself. “Have fun without pulling any pigtails.”

He gets up and goes back to his desk, still chuckling. Amy is extremely freaked out for the rest of the day, and although she can’t tell Jake what happened (because she’s scared of what Charles will do to her if she breaks the ESSS seal), she does ask him what the hell “pigtails” means to Charles.

“Oh…nothing. It’s a weird in-joke…between us, it’s in-between us, nothing to do with you or…feelings…do you want ribs tonight, I’m craving ribs.”

That doesn’t reassure her much.

(The party is great, although Amy still ends up singing—“Love Story,” by Tayler Swift, three beers in and wearing Jake’s hoodie as the cool evening chill settles over Terry’s backyard.)

* * *

Scully and Hitchcock have always been at the Nine-Nine. Always. They were there before everyone else, and they’ll probably be there after everyone leaves. As will the smell of their aftershave and foot fungus ointment.

(They share both.)

Sometimes, they do Jake’s paperwork for him. Sometimes, they let Amy do their paperwork when she’s bored.

_Friendship._

The day after Jake and Amy’s one-year anniversary, the two of them arrive at work together, laughing and holding hands. Scully sits back in his chair and casts a benevolent eye over the two detectives as they set down their bags and coffee, shed their coats, and exchange a brief kiss before sitting down at their desks.

“Y’know, Santiago and Peralta sure would make a nice couple,” Scully muses aloud. Hitchcock, halfway through a Danish, hums affirmatively. “They’ve been awful chummy lately…wonder what that means?”

“I think they’d be a good match. Especially sexually.” Hitchcock finishes his Danish and starts picking at crumbs.

“We could take the wives and go on a triple-date,” Scully enthuses.

“Can we go somewhere new? I’m tired of that Moroccan deli.” Hitchcock’s words come with a shower of damp pastry. Scully takes a sip of coffee, idly spitting out a thumbtack that somehow found its way into his mug.

“Jake and Amy. Your best friend and my best friend, falling in love.” Scully sighs. “Wonder if it’ll ever really happen.”

“Have you seen my Danish?” Hitchcock asks, searching through his desk drawers. “I just had it, I swear.”

* * *

Amy meets Kylie in high school—American government, specifically. Amy sits in the front row and takes diligent notes; Kylie sits halfway back and spends most of her time reading Anne Rice novels. Halfway through the semester, they’re assigned to work on a project together. Amy shows up with three binders, posterboard, and crafting materials. Kylie has to make a split-second decision about whether to find this behavior lovable or obnoxious.

After Amy admits that she went through a whole bag of flour and two spoiled pans trying to bake a decent batch of study-buddy cookies, Kylie decides to go with adorable.

Amy has always been a bit of a loner: making most of her casual friends through student activities, struggling to get out from underneath her individual brothers’ legacies, cramming her schedule with so many responsibilities that there’s no time for feel lonely. Kylie is a loner too, an ex-army brat dealing with divorced parents, a mild Goth phase, and being the only black girl in her grade. They spend a lot of time together, studying for college—Amy wants to be a cop, Kylie wants to work with chemistry—and making sarcastic collages from Amy’s brothers’ girlfriends’ tabloid magazines.

Kylie goes to prom with Amy’s brother Chris, Amy goes to prom with a trumpet player from the marching band named Gordon.

When Amy makes detective, Kylie rents a limo and kidnaps her for a museum-crawl (that’s where they drink in the limo and go to all of Amy’s favorite museums super-wasted).

When Kylie graduates cum laude from Columbia, Amy writes a twenty-page essay (single-spaced, double-sided, Santiago-style) on how proud she is of her.

When Amy tells Kylie that her new boyfriend may possible be her old partner, Kylie rolls her eyes, throws a cookie in her face, and says, “Durr.”

_Friendship._

Kylie and Jake get along famously. She likes to blow things up with chemicals, he likes _Die Hard_ , and they both have massive celebrity crushes on America Ferrara, so they’re already kind of the same person. Throughout the course of Amy’s relationship with Jake, most of Kylie’s advice has been “He loves you because you’re crazy, just remember that.”

That advice doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough this time.

“Okay, tell me _exactly_ what happened.” Kylie lowers herself onto the floor beside Amy, folding her legs up underneath so she can fit into the cramped space at the bottom of Amy’s walk-in closet.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened, I don’t want to think about it, just… _God_ , this is the worst,” Amy says hoarsely. Her eyes are red, her face is blotchy, and she’s wearing one of her older brother’s varsity swimming sweatshirt—an emergency signal that Kyle has been well-trained to catch. Kylie tries to get more comfortable by batting the shoe rack away, but it just swings back and nearly hits her in the face; she settles for wrapping an arm around Amy’s shoulder and scootching a little closer.

“C’mon, baby, don’t wallow. You called _me,_ remember?”

Amy sniffles and inhales deeply. Kylie’s familiar smell of shea butter, rubbing alcohol, and latex dust from safety gloves comforts her.

“I didn’t want to go out tonight, because I’m tired and I have this massive caseload and…but Jake’s tired too, that was my _point_ , I was trying to tell him I thought it would be better for _both_ of us to stay in and watch Netflix or whatever, but then Jake started whining. Really, seriously, _whining¸_ Ky, he was acting like a little kid, moping around and being really rude, and I just made this comment about always having to be the adult, and suddenly it’s—the same thing, we’re having the same argument, like, every week now.”

Amy coughs a few times, an old strategy to hold back tears. “I hate this, I hate this so much. And he won’t even listen to me, he just _leaves_. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I can’t just _stop_ getting annoyed when he does this stuff, I can’t change who I am, and I feel like—” The hardest cough yet. “I feel like he’s looking at me recently and thinking, what the hell am I doing with someone like her?”

“Mmmm.” Kylie hums and pets Amy’s hair, looking away so Amy can start crying. A lifetime surrounded by brothers does not an easy crier make.

After a few minutes, Kylie sighs, uses her sleeve to wipe tears off Amy’s cheeks, and gets to her feet (a trifle unsteadily—her left leg is asleep). She offers Amy both hands.

“Time to get up.”

Kylie knows where Amy keeps her liquor—when she bothers to buy any—and in a flash she’s made them a couple of very stiff gin and tonics. Amy sips hers blearily, perched at the head of the bed and buried inside Joe’s XXL sweatshirt.

“So. The storm is passing,” Kylie observes, swirling the gin in her glass. Amy snorts.

“Yeah, or maybe this relationship was a stupid idea all along.”

“Okay, let’s consider that, shall we?”

“Kylie, come on—”

“Number one,” Kylie cuts Amy off, holding one finger up in the air. “How long have you two been together?”

“Sixteen months,” Amy mumbles. Kylie shakes her head.

“I mean _together_.”

“…nine and a half years.”

“Exactly. So let’s not pretend this is just some guy, huh?” Kylie takes a drink and fights the urge to wince. “Number two—what do you mean when you say ‘someone like you’?”

“I mean…” Amy stares down into her drink. “I mean that Jake and I are completely different people. He’s irresponsible, immature, impulsive—if something bothers him he just ignores it. Or he blows it up in the parking lot.” She takes a big drink and barely registers the alcohol burn. “I’m structured and dedicated and a notary public, for God’s sake. Every little thing bugs me. I’m obsessive, I’m compulsive, I’m—oh my God, do you think I have—”

“Nope.” Kylie has learned to curtail Amy’s hypochondriac panicking in emotional situations. “That’s not your problem.”

“Oh yeah?” Amy is picking at the frayed hem of the sweatshirt, refusing to meet Kylie’s eye. “So what is my problem?”

“Number three—your problem is that you just described yourself and Jake like two people you saw in a movie.”

Amy frowns.

“…what does that—”

“Nobody is any _kind_ of person. Jake can be immature and you can be totally nutso, but that’s not what either of you are made out of. People aren’t atoms, they’re not essential.” Kylie holds out her hands, both of them cupped and about a foot apart. “Y’all are like—like compounds, okay? Atoms making molecules making a whole bunch of shit that can break itself up and change into new substances, with new properties. Endless rearranging, endless new possibilities.” She brings her hands together and clasps them. “You just need the right charge.”

Amy tries to hide it behind her glass, but Kylie sees a smile flickering across her best friend’s face. She reaches out and laces her fingers with Amy’s free hand.

“You’re a laboratory nerd and I love you,” Amy mutters. Kylie grins.

“You’re a hot mess with a badge and I love you too. Know who else loves you? Jake.”

“Jake…” Amy’s smile fades away. Kylie squeezes her hand.

“Why are you fighting, Ames?”

“Because he—”

“Don’t tell me what happened, tell me why.”

The silence that follows is broken only by the rattle of ice cubes as Amy drains her gin and tonic. When she speaks, her voice is quiet.

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of being in love with someone who might not want what I want.” She swallows thickly. “I’m scared of letting him make me different, I’m scared of…of taking the steps I want to take and then regretting it later. Because what if we really can’t make this work?” Amy coughs, but a tear still comes. “I love Jake and I’m scared that it’s a bad idea.”

Kylie is petting Amy’s hair again, sure and strong fingers combing back the black strands from her damp face. “You think Jake would say something similar?”

Amy takes a shaky breath. “Yeah, maybe.” She hugs her knees to her chest and wipes the tear off on her pajama pants. “So what do we do, huh?”

“Aw, baby…” Kylie sighs and offers Amy her own half-finished gin and tonic. “You do what the rest of us do: suck it up and play the damn ball game.”

Amy glares at her over the glass. “Stop mixing your metaphors.”

“I’ll mix whatever I want. Get drunk, text Jake you’re sorry, and figure it out tomorrow.”

After two more rounds of drinks, Amy agrees to text Jake. She dictates the message to Kylie:

 

_To: BAEke Peralta_

_I’m sorry. I acted like an ass. Let me know that you’re okay and let’s talk tomorrow. Love you._

 

The reply—or replies—comes back almost instantly:

 

**_From: BAEke Peralta_ **

**_im the ass. im scully’s ass but even bigger and stinkier. really sorry too._ **

**_From: BAEke Peralta_ **

**_i went home and watched chopped. it wasn’t as much fun without u_ **

**_From: BAEke Peralta_ **

**_breakfast tomorrow?_ **

**_From: BAEke Peralta_ **

**_love u a million, santiago_ **

 

Amy sleepily instructs Kylie to text back three squid emojis and a dark moon face. Jake responds immediately with the same. Kylie, who introduced Amy to cute couple-emoji codes, doesn’t ask.

“What the hell is that name?” Kylie asks, her nose wrinkling. Amy shrugs and slumps sideways onto her pillows.

“He changed his contact information in my phone, like, a veeeeeeery long time ago.” She hiccups. “I know it’s dumb but he makes me laugh.” Another hiccup. “ _It_ makes me laugh.”

Kylie rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as Amy starts to snore.

* * *

Gina and Jake have known each other since kindergarten. The first day of school, Gina stuffs a handful of paste down Jake’s pants, and Jake retaliates by cutting half her bangs off with blunt-edged craft scissors.

Right from the beginning, they make a great team.

Without realizing it, Jake has spent most of his life relying on Gina for (grudging) emotional support. Gina’s dad has never been around, and so she knows the right things to say when Roger Peralta walks out on his family. When Jake starts liking girls, Gina rates his crushes on a scale of 1 to Madonna, and if they’re not good enough for him, she uses a combination of violence and bribery to get him to change his mind. Her sex advice, while often horrifying, is certainly more reliable than his mother’s. (“Don’t get anybody pregnant and go to the doctor if something itches.”)

Gina does a lot of “finding herself” in her twenties: there’s a three-year span where Jake gets an occasional email or Facebook message letting him know she’s alive, usually sent from either Spain or Delaware. Eventually, Gina always ends up back in her little crapbox apartment, kicking out whatever weed-soaked art student she was subletting to and vowing that _this_ time, she’ll take New York by storm. Jake just does his best to make sure she’s still got all her limbs and teeth.

In 2009, when Gina asks him to help her get an actual job, he calls in three favors and buys Captain McGinley a milkshake—bada bing, bada boom, Gina is the new civilian administrator in the Nine-Nine.

Jake and Gina know each other better than anybody. Which is convenient, because most people can’t handle knowing either of them at all.

_Friendship._

“Jake, put that down.”

“What?” Jake waves the gold band with an octagonal-cut ruby in Gina’s face. “It’s shiny. Girls like shiny!”

“It looks like something Tori Spelling would wear on her toe. You’re not proposing to Amy with that.”

Jake makes a grumpy face and puts the ring back into the display case as Gina casts her expert eyes over rows of glimmering jewelry. They’re at a store in the West Village called Marco’s—a compromise between Tiffany’s, where Gina wanted to go, and the pawn shop down the street from the precinct, where Jake wanted to go. If she’s going to help him find the perfect engagement ring for a woman “who’s basically becoming my sister-in-law, and thus heir to the eventual _Looking After The Linettis_ reality TV franchise,” there’s got to be some class involved.

“You know you’re here in a consulting capacity,” he reminds her. “I’m gonna trust my gut on this one.”

“No offence, but your gut is tasteless and ignorant.”

“This is my wedding, Gina, I get to pick the ring!”

Gina bends over a glass case, peering at a velvet cushion displaying diamonds set in platinum bands. “Let me put it this way, chum: you can either let me help you, or you can die alone when she rejects you and starts dating an IRS agent. Choose wisely.”

"The IRS isn't even that great..." Jake grumbles, leaning against a case; one of the clerks hisses at him, and he hurriedly straightens up. Gina snaps her fingers. “Don’t you dare embarrass me, Jake Peralta! This is a first-class second-rate establishment, and I have an image to protect!”

“Are you going to help me or not?” Jake demands. Gina sighs and points at another cushion, which the disgruntled clerk lifts out and places on the counter (far away from Jake).

“Okay, so try this on for size: white gold, square diamond, big enough that all the ladies will spit in her coffee but not so big that she’ll get mugged for it.” Gina hands the ring to Jake. He turns it over in his fingers, staring at it.

“My preciousssssss…”

“ _Jake!_ This is serious business!”

“I know, I know, and this ring is great, but it’s not Amy,” he says, and Gina exhales violently through her nose, but she knows he’s right. It’s a beautiful, classy, non-Santiago ring.

Twenty minutes later, Gina has gone through most of the rings in the front of the store and Jake is getting super antsy. She finds herself wishing that she had a juicebox or some Fruit Leather to distract him, or at least keep his hands off the merchandise.

“Jake!” She’s just sent the clerk to the back “so they can get a look at all the blood-diamond stuff,” when she hears a crash and turns to see Jake with his arms full of a display tower, dripping lockets and pendants and silver chains like some kind of avant-garde Christmas tree.

“Help,” he says faintly.

“You know,” Gina says, after getting everything back together and smacking Jake in the back of the head, “I still can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“I know, right?” Jake grins at her, his hands now stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket (per her orders). “Amy’s gonna lose her shit when I blow all that money she helped me save on a dope-ass ring.”

“No, I mean I can’t believe we’re shopping for a ring to get you hitched, son.” She elbows him in the ribs. “When did you get all mature and institutional?”

“Aw, shucks, gee whiz.” Jake’s attempt at sarcasm is undercut somewhat by the blush creeping across his cheeks. “I’m really only doing it for all the presents.”

“Just like the Bar Mitzvah,” they both say at the same time, and laugh.

“Think she knows you’re gonna do it?” Gina asks. Jake snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Durr. I’m gonna be lucky to beat her to the punch.”

Gina’s eyes widen. “Oh my God, Santiago might propose to you? Why are we not letting that happen? Why are we not _filming_ it? I bet she’d do it like a TED Talk, binders, graphs—Jake, you could go viral!”

“First of all, over your dead body would I be the first of either of us to go viral—”

“Aight, true.”

“And second, I _could_ let her propose. We’ve talked about it, Amy’s used to getting what she wants, I’d bet my left one she’s got it scheduled in her planner—but then she would win. I can’t let her win.”

Gina frowns. “You have to win at proposing.”

“Exactly.”

“Y’all are some beautiful kind of twisted.”

Jake grins and wiggles his eyebrows. “You don’t even know the half of it, Linetti.”

She taps a long, sculpted nail on the glass counter. “You _talked_ about it, huh?”

“Yeah. So?”

“I dunno, it’s just so… _adult_.” Gina grins at him. “Remember our pledge?”

Jake frowns for a moment, but then his eyes light up. “Ninth grade?”

“If neither of us is married by the time we’re forty—”

“We’re gonna buy a pet leopard.”

“No, that was the _other_ pledge.”

“Oh, right.” Jake scratches his head as he wracks his brain. “Um…remind me?”

“If neither of us is married by the time we’re forty, we were gonna marry each other and cheat with Fiona Apple and all of Boyz II Men.” Gina pokes him in the arm. “That was your idea, by the way.”

“Oh come on, that sounds way more like you!”

“Nuh uh, I remember!” she insists. “I was saying that getting married was stupid because everybody always breaks up and the kids get the shit end of the stick, and you were like, I’m never gonna run out on my wife and kid, and I was like, prove it, and you were like, fine, if we’re not married by the time we’re forty, I’ll marry you and I’ll be the best husband ever except I’m gonna have to mess around with Fiona Apple because you’re icky like a sister.”

Jake blinks. “…sounds about right.”

“See?” Gina says. “I was the first person you talked about marriage with.” A smile crosses Gina’s face as she gazes at Jake, and he squirms.

“What? Stop looking at me, freak. Stop it. I’m gonna tell your mom!”

“I totally made you a good guy,” she says proudly. Jake’s mouth drops open.

“What now?”

“Amy should send me a God damn gift basket full of moisturizer and scented lube. Without me, you’d be—”

“Hold on a sec—”

She just shouts over him. “YOU’D BE SOME TROLLFACE FUCKBOY WITH A BUTTHOLE FOR A BRAIN AND A FELONY CONVICTION FOR STALKING FIONA APPLE, BUT I MADE YOU A DECENT MAN!”

Right about then is when the clerk arrives with a new batch of rings, and he seems very, very close to throwing Jake and Gina out of the shop. Gina, however, is used to moving through life with the flexibility and hard-nosed determination of her spiritual animal twin, the Arctic timber wolf, and so she fluidly turns from shrieking at Jake to inspecting the velvet tray.

“Hmmm, let’s see what we have here, then…perhaps…no…no…how about—no…wait.” She pulls a ring out of its slot and grabs Jake’s hand; unfolding his fingers, she drops it into his flat palm. “I found your ring.”

It’s silver, the band thin and flat, wrought into a gentle curlicue setting that cradles a soft blue diamond. The diamond itself is oval, slightly raised, small but brilliant in the dim yellow lighting of the shop. It would look like an afternoon sky against Amy’s skin.

Jake stares at the ring. Gina knows what he’s seeing: visions of Amy wearing that ring while she works cases, draws a gun, does paperwork. He’s imagining a future in which Amy Santiago is exactly the same as she always is, except she’s wearing the ring that he chose for her.

With a little help.

They take it. Jake carries the wrapped box in his hand, squeezed tight; he is unusually quiet as they head towards his apartment, and Gina doesn’t push him. For once, she doesn’t feel much like talking either; her heart is too full.

* * *

Terry becomes Sergeant in 2006, before all the rest of them even see the inside of the Nine-Nine. His presence is inseparable from the place, like the smell of the chairs or the clatter of the holding cell door. He recognizes potential quickly, but he has a little too much patience for dicking around—a quality Jake hones in on immediately.

There’s something familiar in both Santiago and Peralta that Terry recognizes: a hunger that may not be entirely healthy, but without which they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs. He watches them chase that hunger, feed it with overtime hours and competition, playing off each other, vying for first place. He keeps them in line and guides them when he can. When he was a young patrol officer, he used to be like that; but then he met Sharon, and he had his baby girls, and chasing the thrill wasn’t as important as coming home to the people he loved. Terry resigns himself to the fact that Jake and Amy make different choices, and that the best he can do is keep them both alive.

They don’t notice how hard he works to do it, and that’s how he knows he’s good at his job.

_Friendship._

When Jake and Amy announce their engagement, Terry immediately volunteers his house for the engagement party.

It later appears that this was slightly premature, at least according to Sharon. Terry owes her a bushel of oatmeal cookies and at least six weekends of Daddy Duty, and she _still_ calls him “Terrence” for a solid three days after they discuss the issue.

But family is family, especially in the Nine-Nine, and a few weeks later, the Jeffords home is once again hosting a shindig that revolves around Terry’s stupid grown-up work-kids. The air is warm, just a tinge of summer in the air, and it smells like the burgers and macaroni salad Jake has insisted be on the menu, as opposed to Boyle’s original suggestions: seaweed chutney, jellyfish casserole, and candied coral. The backyard is lit by the paper lanterns and strings of Christmas lights that Gina schlepped in from a junk shop in Bushwick; Terry’s old boombox is blasting one of Jake’s mixtapes (“No nineties West Coast rap!” “But Ames—” “Jake, my parents are already confused that I’m marrying a Jewish guy with an Italian last name, I can’t explain this to them!”), and several coolers dot the grass, filled with ice, beer, and bottles of wine.

Everyone is here, and that means _everyone:_ the Nine-Nine’s detective squad, their plus-ones, and most of the police uniforms; Jake’s mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins; Amy’s parents, five of her brothers, and all assorted families; Jake’s academy buddies; Sal from Sal’s Pizza; Kylie and her girlfriend; even Super-Dan shows up (Jake gives Amy a weird look, which she pretends not to see).

Sharon has to take a lot of deep breaths, and within the first hour, Terry volunteers for another month of weekend Daddy Duty. But they get through it.

Around nine-thirty, Terry comes downstairs from putting Cagney and Lacey down—their room was sound-proofed a long time ago—and heads to the kitchen for another beer. He finds Amy alone, perched on the counter, her legs crossed beneath the red-and-black skirt of her sundress and a glass of white wine clutched loosely in her hand.

“Hey, Santiago, what’s good?” he asks, knocking on the island countertop to get her attention. Amy blinks, her eyes refocusing as she comes back from somewhere far away.

“Oh, hey, Sarge…nothing, just—taking a breather.” She sips her wine and pushes her hair back behind her ear. It’s gotten longer, and she rarely wears it down; when she does, it nearly reaches her elbows. “It’s crowded out there.”

Terry nods as he cracks open a Stella. “Nah, are you kidding? Barely three hundred people in my yard.”

Amy grins. “Sharon’s not too thrilled, is she?”

“I’m taking one for the team. Congrats, Amy.”

“Aw, Sarge.” She raises her glass, and Terry clinks his bottle against it. They each take a drink, enjoying the silence.

Then, from outside, the sound of Jake whooping echoes clearly into the kitchen; a moment later, Tupac’s “Hit ‘Em Up” starts thumping loud enough to make the windows rattle. The volume quickly decreases, but Jake whoops again, and Charles can be heard chanting, “Go Jakey! Work it! Go Jakey! Get crunkey!”

Amy and Terry both sigh at the same time. Amy shakes her head. “And to think, that man’s name is going to be on a government license with mine.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Terry begins carefully, “but…are y’all getting a _joint_ checking account, or—”

“Terry!” Amy nearly spits a mouthful of wine across the kitchen. “What do you _think_ of me?”

“Just wanted to make sure!” he assures her, patting her on the shoulder. Amy coughs and glares at him. “I love Jake like a son, and he’s a hundred times the man he was before the two of you got together, but—”

“But then there’s common sense,” Amy finishes his sentence for him. She’s smiling now, so Terry doesn’t feel bad. “Thank you for the party, Sarge, seriously.”

“You kidding? It’s the least I could do.”

“What do you mean?”

Terry shrugs. “Well, to be honest, I won the pool.”

Amy’s brow furrows in confusion. “The pool?”

“On when y’all would—”

“Oh come on!”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Terry defends himself. Amy rolls her eyes.

“You’re all ridiculous.” She takes another sip of wine. They can hear Jake rapping along to the song from out in the yard; he knows about a quarter of the words. “What were the bets?”

“Santiago, I can’t—” It’s pretty incredible how scary Amy can look when she wants to. “Fifty bucks each. Gina bet that you’d get engaged after three months, Charles bet nine months, Rosa bet a year, Captain Holt bet three years.”

Amy’s mouth falls open. “Captain Holt?”

Terry nods. “He took the over—thought you and Jake might still need some time.”

“Time to do what?”

The sound of a human body hitting the ground hard can be faintly heard, and Jake curses. Some child—it might be one of Amy’s nephews—starts laughing hysterically. Terry feels that the question has been answered for him.

Amy seems to agree. She sighs and finishes her glass of wine, setting it down with a soft clink on the kitchen counter. “So what about you, huh? Why two years?”

“Seemed to balance out,” he answers, head cocked to the side. “You don’t rush, Jake doesn’t like to wait…” After a pause, he adds, “We knew that y’all would be in it for good, though. Nobody in their right mind would bet against the two of you.”

Amy smiles. She swings her legs and gets that faraway look in her eyes again; Terry wonders if he should leave her alone.

“Well, I’m gonna—”

“He loves you too,” she says, looking up at him. “I don’t know if you know what you mean to him, but Jake…it’s not easy for him to trust people, and he trusts you with his life. Without you and Holt, I don’t know if he’d still be around.”

Terry forces himself to keep eye contact with Amy. He gets the sense that she’s been meaning to tell him this for a while, and he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing in response. Santiago’s lips are slightly parted, and she’s twisting her engagement ring on her finger—a nervous habit she’s developed ever since Jake proposed. The blue diamond gleams in the kitchen’s fluorescent light.

“Thank you for saying that, Amy.” He picks his words carefully. “But I don’t know if—I think you might not be taking enough credit yourself.” Terry takes her hand and squeezes it. “I’ve served with a lot of good people, and Jake’s one of the best. I’m glad we can trust each other. But being good, trusting your command—that’s not what keeps a person going. None of it means jackshit without something or someone to work for.”

Amy’s hand is tight on his. Terry smiles, and an image of Sharon and his baby girls appears in his head. “Even when y’all were at each other’s throats, Jake had you.”

They both jump at the sound of a door slamming, and a second later Jake appears in the kitchen, panting, his face shiny with sweat and his shirt covered in grass stains.

“Sarge! Have you seen—” He stops short when he sees Amy on the counter, clutching Terry’s hand. “There you are! Whoa, Amy, are you leaving me for Terry? Not that I would blame you, but wow, not cool. Sarge, I’m totally telling Sharon on you.”

Amy rolls her eyes and hops off the counter. “What do you need, Peralta?”

“I need you to hold the camera! Your dad just agreed to a dance-off and I’m gonna play ‘Whoomp, There It Is!’, you _have_ to help me, come on—”

Despite Amy’s moans of aggravation, Jake drags out her out into the backyard. Terry follows, intent on kissing his wife before they both watch what will probably be the most confusing dance competition of the new millennium.

* * *

“Peralta, hold still.”

“But you’re choking me!”

“It’s a small price to pay for a properly knotted bowtie. There.” Holt tugs the ends of the bowtie decisively and claps Jake on the shoulder. “A perfect Eldredge. One of my best.”

Jake swallows, grimacing as the bowtie nudges at his Adam’s apple, and goes to look at himself in the mirror. The image is slightly underwhelming; after all, his tuxedo still only has three buttons. Plus, his cummerbund is a dark burgundy that Gina chose for the wedding theme, which kind of reminds him of cranberry sauce, which makes him think of Thanksgiving, which reminds him that his dad isn’t here, despite several text messages, phone calls, and an email that caused a big fight between him and Amy, and now Jake is in a bad mood on his wedding day.

“Peralta?”

“Yes, sir?” Jake turns to Captain Holt, who is standing slightly behind him in the crowded dressing room.

“You’re making an unpleasant face. I suggest you stop making it before the ceremony.”

The ceremony. Jake swallows again and imagines standing in the main hall of the venue—a repurposed municipal building that now caters to weddings and parties, all the classic old stone cutting and high ceilings perfect for someone like Amy who wants to be surrounded by governmental standards of elegance on her wedding day—waiting for his wedding to actually happen.

Strange how no standoff with a gun-wielding criminal has ever terrified him this much before.

“You’re still making the face, Peralta.”

“Sorry, Captain.” Jake gives himself a shake and tries to smile. “Must’ve been something I ate.”

Captain Holt frowns. He looks like a black James Bond in his own tuxedo, the dark red rose in his lapel dashing and elegant, his Santiago-Peralta Wedding yarmulke already carefully affixed to the top of his head. “Are you going to be sick? If you need to vomit, perhaps you should do it now, and not on Santiago or her dress.”

“No, I’m not gonna be sick. Thanks for helping me with my tie, Captain.” Jake fakes another smile and turns away, pretending to adjust his cufflinks. This room is tiny, probably used to be some flunky's airless office, and the beige walls seem to be closing in on him. The door is behind Holt; the mirror is staring Jake in the face.

He wants Holt to leave so he can look away from that all-too-real reflection and have a second alone with this strange mixture of anxiety, fear, excitement, and confusion.

“Jake.” The deep voice that comes from behind him is softer than usual. “Are you all right?”

Jake doesn’t turn around. “Yeah, fine. Totes.”

“You don’t have to be.” A moment of silence, in which Jake swears Holt can hear his heart pounding. “The step you’re about to take is not…inconsequential. Doubts are normal.”

Jake turns now, because he suddenly has the strongest urge to hug Holt—or grab him, touch him, just reach out and connect with him, somehow, because he needs to make someone understand the truth of what he’s feeling. And no matter how often he fights with Holt, no matter how directly they butt heads, Holt has always been there for him. Holt has said the things fathers are supposed to say, has known the things fathers are supposed to know.

Holt will understand.

“I don’t have doubts,” Jake says, and he clutches Holt’s arm. Aside from a slight twitch in his left eyebrow, Holt doesn’t respond to the contact, or to the urgency in Jake’s voice. “I don’t have doubts, I love Amy—so much, Christ, there’s nobody I want to spend my life with more than her, there’s nobody I want to spend the next ten _minutes_ with more than her, but—I’m _scared_. I don’t know why, man, I don’t know what of, I’m just scared.”

Jake can feel the sweat gathering on his hairline, _fuck, it’s gonna make it hard to get the yarmulke to stay on._ “I mean, once you get married there’s all this shit you’re supposed to do and all this stuff that’s supposed to happen—I’m not ready for that, I’m not Terry, I’m not you! It’s so permanent, and I—I haven’t thought this through until _just now_ , which is so dumb, Captain, it’s so dumb.”

Jake takes a deep breath, and then he realizes how tightly he’s squeezing Holt’s arm. He lets go, and Holt visibly releases a breath. Embarrassed, Jake stares at his polished shoes, trying to get past the sudden lump in his throat.

“…the weirdest thing, man, I dunno…I wish I could talk to Santiago about it. Like she’s the one who could help me feel better.” He laughs; it sounds hollow. “Probably shouldn’t tell her that I’m losing my shit right now.”

The silence in the dressing room seems to expand, like the air inside a balloon. Jake can’t bring himself to look at Holt…which is why he nearly jumps out of his skin when a warm, heavy hand lands on his shoulder.

“Trust that fear, Jake,” Holt says. Jake’s head pops up; Holt is smiling. “Nothing important is easy to do.”

“But Amy—”

“The person who you think of during great struggle is the person who is most worth struggling for.”

A long moment passes.

“What I’m saying is, while Santiago would be inhumanly angry with you for getting cold feet, the fact that you still feel the urge to speak to her is an indication that—”

“I get it, Captain, thanks,” Jake cuts him off. He takes a deep breath and tries to release it; instead, a faint wheeze comes out. Holt frowns.

“That didn’t sound good.”

“…I just can’t let her down, sir,” Jake says in a voice so small he doesn’t even know if Holt can hear him.

The hand on his shoulder gives a squeeze. “Would you like to know a fun fact?”

Jake blinks. “Gonna be honest with you, I didn’t expect that to be the next thing you said.”

“Indulge me.”

“Um…you’re allergic to walnuts?”

“After my first week at the Nine-Nine, I came home to Kevin and I said, ‘Jake Peralta might be the best detective and the worst man I’ve ever known.’”

“Wow.” Jake frowns. This is certainly taking his mind off the whole wedding issue. “I knew you hated me in the beginning, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Oh yes, you were quite dreadful. But that was more than four years ago. I’ve always been proud to have you under my command, but now, I am proud to call you my friend. I am proud…” Holt clears his throat. “I am proud of the trust I place in you.”

This time Jake does hug him. For a long time, his face buried in the broad shoulder, his hands clutching the fabric that covers Holt’s back. Strong arms encircle him. The smell of sandalwood is everywhere. The little room is full of frozen time.

“You’re Jake Peralta,” says the deep, calm voice by his ear. “You’re not going to let anybody down, son.”

_Friendship._

Amy’s feet are killing her. Which isn’t surprising, because these shoes are insane—gorgeous, but insane.

It’s her sister-in-law Mariela’s fault. Amy was able to talk her family down from most of the over-the-top wedding plans, but Mariela bought those shoes the day after Amy was assigned a triple-homicide, and she was way too tired to take more than a quick glance before giving the okay, and basically Mariela is the worst. Because now Amy’s feet are killing her.

Sinking down into a chair by one of the empty tables, Amy breathes out a sigh of relief. The band is currently playing a fast song that she doesn’t recognize (although to be honest, she doesn’t recognize most songs, because Jake is annoyingly accurate when he describes her knowledge of pop culture as “grandmotherly”). Most people are getting their second winds by now, bopping around the dance floor or taking a break to grab glasses of champagne. Amy casts her eyes over the lamp-lit space—

Charles rocking out with his girlfriend Genevieve, their hip thrusts so enthusiastic that a three-foot sphere of caution has cleared around them—

Terry, one twin on each hip, the taffeta of their party dresses bouncing as he twirls in in a circle with his baby girls, while Sharon cradles their sleeping toddler, Ava, on the edge of the dance floor—

Rosa doing an aggressively cool shuffle, her black sheath dress clinging to her body and attracting the attention of several Santiago nephews and uncles, as well as Amy’s brother Greg—

Hitchcock and Scully, asleep in the corner—

Kevin Cozner, dancing with Amy’s Tia Jean, a smile plastered on his face as she chatters away and steps on his toes with the infamous Santiago double-left-feet—

Gina, taking up fifteen square feet of the floor by herself, leaping and twirling like some kind of exotic bird on a whole mess of PCP, the sequins on her dress shimmering—

And Jake, his mother Karen swept up in his arms, still sporting his lopsided yarmulke from the ceremony (which caused a lot of confusion amongst the Santiago clan), jitterbugging to the pop beat and laughing with such pure joy that Amy’s skin tingles just watching him.

Jake Peralta. Her husband. There he is.

The pop song ends, and everybody comes to a stop as the applause builds and the band takes a moment to regroup. Amy leans down to ease her shoes off, pulling aside the heavy lace and draping of her skirt. The dress is gorgeous, long and form-fitting, hugging her hips and surrounding her legs in a waterfall of heirloom lace; it was her Abuela’s, too short for her mother, saved for the first Santiago woman in her generation (suck it, all her cousins!). She’d much rather lounge around looking pretty than trip over her own feet in these stupid shoes.

A slower song begins, something that sounds a little more classical. It’s nice; Amy is reminded of lying on her grandparents’ living room floor as a child, listening to their records spin on the turntable, sunlight filtering through the leaves of the elms outside, awash in the smells of lavender and black beans and Lysol.

Caught up in memory, she doesn’t notice the presence that appears at her elbow—which, given how aware Amy usually is of Captain Holt’s movements, is probably why she jumps so badly when he says, “Detective Santiago?”

“Captain!” Amy nearly falls out of her chair, and Holt grabs her arm to steady her. Flushed, blinking rapidly, she scrambles to her feet. “I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t see you, I—I was just—”

“You were preoccupied,” he supplies. Amy laughs awkwardly.

“Yeah, I was just remembering something, y’know, going down memory lane…so I guess I was really _post-_ occupied, huh?”

Captain Holt’s face is implacable. Amy wants to die.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir—”

“Would you like to dance?”

His words don’t seem to make sense for a long second, and when they do, Amy’s brain does a short but powerful reboot. She blinks. “Dance…me…and you?”

Holt raises an eyebrow. “Presumably.”

“Oh…oh! Yes, of course, I…I would love to dance with you, sir!”

“Excellent. Shall we?”

He extends a hand to her; Amy stares at it for a moment before she takes it and lets him lead her out onto the dance floor.

It’s only after the Captain has put a hand on her waist, taken her other hand in his, and swept her into a barely manageable waltz that Amy Santiago realizes she’s totally forgotten to put her shoes back on, and that she’s dancing barefoot with Captain Holt on her wedding night.

Too late now. _Eyes closed, head first, can’t lose._

Amy has already danced tonight: she danced with Jake (to “Dreaming Of You,” by Selena, which Amy has secretly wanted to be the first dance at her wedding since she was thirteen, and which Jake was totally down for because it was from the nineties), and she danced with her dad, and she’s danced with her brothers and once with Terry. Most of those dances were with other Santiagos, who share the genes for total lack of coordination and rhythm; the others were with a gentle giant and with her husband, who loves her enough to keep quiet when she steps on his feet.

But this is Captain Holt, her mentor, her sage, the man she wants to impress more than anyone in the entire world, and now she’s barefoot in a super-long dress on a cold marble floor with his hand on her waist trying to keep time to a stupid song and not kick him or fall over or bite him or do something equally insane _oh my God Amy your wedding is about to go up in flames._

“You seem tense,” Holt says, his deep voice cutting through her jangling thoughts. Amy swallows and tries to forget how gritty and cold the floor is.

“N-no, I’m fine! I just…love dancing, so much,” she stammers. Holt cocks his head and sweeps her backwards; she nearly loses her balance, and has to grab the back of his neck for support. Amy is sure her eyes are bugging out.

“Really…I was of the understanding that you don’t dance much.”

“Whaaaaaaat? I dance all the—whoa!” She stumbles over what feels like a tube of chapstick on the floor and falls face-first into his chest. Holt barely stays standing; Amy ends up with a hand pressed flat against his stomach, pushing herself out of his shirtfront. The rose in his lapel is crushed flat.

She stares up at him, mouth hanging open. “I—I—I’m so sorry, Captain, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, I’m sorry, Detective Santiago.” Holt’s voice is soft, and his eyes are too. His hands come up again—one on her waist, one holding hers—and this time he is moving much slower, _step-step, step-step_ , back and forth, totally out of sync with the music, but much easier for Amy to follow.

She smiles. Her free hand settles on his shoulder again. They dance— _step-step, step-step_ , side to side, back and forth, very slow—sticking out like a sore thumb as everyone twirls to the music around them.

“Thank you, Captain Holt,” Amy says, and Holt smiles. An honest-to-God smile, teeth and everything.

“A dance should fit the dancer,” he says. “Especially on a day like this, when the dancer’s happiness is being celebrated by her loved ones.”

Amy is sure that her face is redder than Holt’s crushed flower. “Well, I…I’m glad you’re here today, Captain.”

“So am I.” He squeezes her hand very gently. “After all, I couldn’t miss your wedding and still call myself a decent mentor, could I?”

Amy’s breath is gone. She can’t feel the cold floor beneath her feet, can’t hear the jarring rhythm of the music as it batters against their two-step, can’t see the dancers around them. All she can do is inhabit this moment, this place in time, when Captain Holt gave her the greatest wedding present in the history of the world.

“Captain—”

“Stand up straight, Santiago.”

“Oh!” She jolts to attention. “Sorry!”

“Just kidding,” he says, and Amy’s laughter rings out over the dance floor.

_Friendship._

* * *

It’s a nice hotel. Williamsburg, eleventh floor, all black marble countertops and soft, cream-colored linen, with a balcony view of the river and Manhattan lit up like a tangle of fairy lights.

Not that they’ve spent much time on the balcony. Or anywhere but the bed.

Jake has his entire body snugged up right on top of Amy, his hips slotted into hers, his head resting in the hollow between her breasts, his hands tucked under her shoulder blades. His skin is sticky with cooling sweat, and his full weight presses her down into the mattress; with each heavy breath, their combined bulk falls and rises. Every once in a while, his tongue pokes out and tastes her casually. He doesn’t want to forget.

One of Amy’s hands is sweeping slowly up and down Jake’s spine, raising goosebumps from the small of his back to the damp hair at the base of his neck. Her other arm is thrown over her head, fingers playing with strands of her own hair. Both feet are planted on the mattress, her knees bent, bracketing Jake closer in towards her.

They are both completely naked and gloriously exhausted.

“That was fun,” Jake mutters into Amy’s right breast. She snorts.

“What, endless sex?”

“No, getting married. Wait, also sex. More sex.” He tries to raise himself onto his elbows, but groans and collapses back onto Amy. The impact nearly knocks the air out of her.

“Oof! Fuck off, Peralta!”

“I cannot do more sex. I have been defeated.” Jake nuzzles into her skin. “You broke a champion, Amy Santiago.”

“Don’t be so humble,” she says, smacking his butt. Jake squeals, but doesn’t move. A few moments of silence pass, their breathing coming back in sync.

“But seriously, that was fun, right?” he asks finally, raising his head to look her in the eye. “Our wedding was pretty great.”

“Yeah, it was.” Amy plays with his earlobe. “I loved every second of it.”

“Really?”

“Well, every other second.” She rolls her eyes. “I could have done without our moms' craziness, or your uncle breaking that table. Or Charles and Genevieve hooking up in the rabbi’s car.”

“Yeah, that was rough.”

“How’d they even get in there?”

“Charles gets mistaken for a valet sometimes, people just kind of hand him their car keys.”

“Oh God.”

“Don’t even ask me what he did with Vivian Ludley in her grad student’s Mercedes.”

“Ew!” Amy winces. “I don’t want to hear about Charles’ creepy sex history.”

“Sorry.”

“…But the point is, I loved every second of our wedding with you in it.” Amy presses her thumb against Jake’s lips; he kisses it, then nips the pad. She blows a raspberry at him, and, impossibly, he loves her a little.

“I am pretty fantastic.” He rests his chin on her sternum. “Oh, by the way, I think Rosa’s gonna hook up with your cousin Natalie.”

“Wait— _what?”_ Amy tries to sit up in bed, but Jake is dead weight, pinning her down. “She is—but— _what?”_

“They were totally getting fancy with each other by the end of the night. You know Rosa is a switch-hitter, right?”

“Duh,” Amy scoffs. “I kissed her at Gina’s birthday party one time. She is _not_ going to hook up with Natalie, that girl is barely out of college!”

Jake’s eyes are suddenly bugging out of his head, and his mouth has fallen open. The world is exploding. “You—you did what?”

“Jake, focus. Did you really see them together? Because if you did, I’m going to call Natalie—no, wait, I’m going to call Rosa, because this is—”

“No way!” Jake pins her arms by her sides as Amy starts to reach towards the bedside table for her phone. “You are not cockblocking your totally-legal cousin who is old enough to make her own choices.”

“But—”

“Instead, you are going to tell me when the _hell_ you made out with Rosa, and why the hell you didn’t tell me about it before!”

“Nuh uh.” Amy shakes her head. “You don’t let me call Natalie, I don’t tell you about me and Rosa.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Jake’s response is to face-plant into her chest, making Amy gasp. They lie like that for a bit, both fighting smiles and the urge to speak first. Finally, Amy starts to card her fingers through Jake’s hair. He relaxes into the sensation, enjoying the pulse of her heart through the warm surface of her ribcage.

“Did you see Gina dancing with Terry?”

“Oh man,” Jake laughs, lifting his head. “You mean Terry trying to escape from Gina before Sharon saw?”

“I’ve never seen such a powerful man so helpless.”

Jake snorts. “Gina’s pirouettes are like military torture. She used to practice by the door in Nana’s kitchen, kept me trapped in there for hours.”

“Thank God for Sharon.”

“Yeah, I think she’s the only woman in this world Gina is scared of.”

“Here’s hoping Cagney and Lacey are nothing like their dad.” Amy smiles. “Remember Captain Holt carrying Ava around?”

Jake laughs; the movement sends a tremor through both of them. “That was amazing. He was like, ‘what do I do with this small human? Sergeant, the small human has defecated onto herself. Please help me, else I shall perish.’”

“God, you do a terrible Holt.”

“Hey, my Holt is spot on! Gina says I could go pro!”

“Pro at what?!” Amy asks, laughing; Jake shrugs, and she wraps her arms around him, hugging his shoulders against her ribs. “I love you, Mr. Jake Santiago.”

“Hey, no fair.” Jake grins and scootches forward to kiss her chin. “We agreed to hyphenate, no backing out now.”

“Over my dead body. My name is perfect, I’m not giving it up for anyone.”

“Not even me?”

He’s pouting. He knows how much it gets to her when he pouts.

“Not even you.”

Amy digs her toes into his calf. Jake wriggles against her, and pushes his face into her chest again. She starts to drag her toes up and down his leg, tickling the hair. Jake's breath hitches.

“Despite your stubbornness, I love you too, _Mrs._ Amy Santiago,” he growls. Only minutes ago, he was utterly convinced that he has used up his sex drive for the next five years,  _at least_ ; but tell that to his cock, which is starting to twitch and harden against Amy's upper thigh as she shifts beneath him.

“We do have some pretty incredible friends,” she murmurs. Jake hums in agreement and kisses the underside of her left breast; his other hand skims up over her ribs and begins to massage her right breast.

“I mean, they’re really…they’re amazing p-people…” Amy stutters, refusing to give in. Jake’s tongue flicks over her nipple, and his hips start to rock gently into the hollow of her legs. The heat of her skin, the softness, the way she accidentally pokes him in the ear when she grabs his hair to drag him upwards and force his mouth against her neck...yeah, Jake is pretty sure he made the right call in marrying this person.

“I just—I feel so lucky—”

“Hey, wife,” Jake whispers, and he hoists himself up on his elbows, pulling forwards and over her, his erection hot on her lower stomach and his knees bracketing her upper thighs. “Stop talking.”

Amy reaches down, grabs hold of his cock, and drags her nails down his shoulder blade as she jerks him once, twice, three times.

“Sure thing, husband,” she says over his ragged moan.

* * *

They fall asleep an hour past dawn, lying in a pile of cream-colored pillows and comforter on the hotel balcony, watching the sky turn from black to blue as the sun rises and light floods New York City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter to go! Comments will lead to SO MUCH JAKE/AMY GOODNESS I JUST CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT


	6. Everything Else

**6\. Everything Else**

 

In the first few months, Amy and Jake genuinely can’t stand each other.

_She’s prissy, she’s a suck-up, she’s rule-obsessed, she’s a perfectionist, she won’t let me play my mix-tapes on stakeouts, she’s a nightmare! I can’t work with Santiago!_

_He’s a slob, he’s rude, he’s incredibly unprofessional, he has no respect for personalized timetables, he’s the worst! I refuse to partner with Peralta!_

Terry has only been Sergeant for three months at this point, and he goes through a variety of strategies to get them to settle their differences:

HR counseling session (Amy knows the mediation material better than the counselor does, and Jake just makes choo-choo noises the whole time)—

Separating them like cranky toddlers (Jake claims Amy is judging his penmanship from across the room, Amy swears Jake is slurping his orange soda even louder out of spite)—

Rewarding them with treats for good behavior (they get wise to his method and fake a hearty friendship to con him out of extra binders—Amy—and piggyback rides—Jake).

Eventually, worn to his last nerve and receiving literally zero help from Captain McGinley, Terry goes for broke: he shackles them together on every single incoming case, stating flat-out that unless they can figure out how to work together, they’re going to be spending the rest of their careers joined at the hip, flatfooting Door Duty on every B&E from here to Bensonhurst.

At first, it’s an endless parade of whines, complaints, and steadily less-convincing attempts to show the Sarge that they don’t actually hate each other’s guts. But neither of them is willing to be petty beyond the point of neglecting their jobs, and slowly the cases begin to get solved. The work is done, the leads are followed, and gradually, without them even noticing, Jake and Amy start to like each other.

_She’s fierce, she’s dauntless, she’s smart—make that brilliant—she’s freakishly thorough. She’s the kind of partner I can trust with my life._

_He’s determined, he’s brave, he’s strong, he’s got the sharpest instincts I ever seen. He’s the kind of partner I can trust with my life._

He still pranks her mercilessly. She still belittles his intelligence. They’re still very prone to toddler-like behavior.

But something has changed.

* * *

 

“So, Captain, Jake and I were wondering: now that we’re—”

“ _Hella_ married. Punch it in, Cap’n.”

“Not technically _dating,”_ Amy continues through a clenched jaw, “do you think it would be all right if we went back into the field together?”

Captain Holt sets his elbows on his desk, steeples his fingers, and stares coolly at the newlyweds. Amy is trying to keep her Responsible Married Cop Smile in place, though her nerves are betrayed by the way she twists the two rings on her finger in frantic circles. In contrast, Jake reclines in his chair, one arm still outstretched for a fistbump.

“C’mon!," he insists. "Not even a pity-punch? You were at our wedding, sir. You ate a piece of our cake, I _saw_ you.”

“Indeed. It was sugary and delightful.” Holt levels his gaze at Jake. “But that cake is in the past, Peralta, as are your previous attempts to partner while romantically involved.”

Amy winces, and Jake withdraws his fist from bump-position. “I know we weren’t exactly stellar last time, sir—” Amy begins.

“You nearly let a high-level drug dealer escape from custody, due to your constant bickering and ruminations on mattresses.”

“True, _but,”_ Jake pipes up, waving a finger in the air, “at the time in question, we were—how to put it—‘full of feels.’ Now we’re totally married and it’s a legal fact that we’re into each other. Now we can focus on catching criminals and not on preserving the fragile structure of our relationship!”

Holt glances at Amy, who can’t seem to decide whether to acknowledge Jake’s point or divorce him on the spot. “Detective Santiago? Your thoughts on the matter?”

Amy takes a deep breath. “Sir, Peralta is right. We have an outstanding record of fieldwork and, dare I say, an outstanding record as a couple.”

“Noice.”

“Shut up, Jake.”

Holt clears his throat. “All right. How about this: a trial period of three months. If you can successfully work cases together without your married life interfering, I’ll remove any restrictions. Permanently.”

“Yes!” Jake bounces to his feet and pumps his fist in the air. “We are about to _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_ this precinct! Amy, from now on I want you to address me in code. I’ll be ‘Husband-One.’ You can be ‘Wife-Prime.’”

Amy glances at Holt. “…please don’t punish me for his actions.”

“Please leave my office.”

The next two and a half months are some of the happiest of both their lives. Working side-by-side on cases again, coming home to the same apartment, Amy studying for her Sergeant’s exam while Jake helps Charles and Genevieve apply for adoption (and takes one very terrifying motorcycle lesson with Rosa): it’s the domestic dream that neither of them had until they met each other, and only then after a long stretch of mutual loathing.

But then again, they’re Jake and Amy, so any dream of theirs is bound to be a bit eccentric.

The Chiang case is ten weeks after their conversation with Captain Holt. The body of a young woman was found at the edge of the Nine-Nine’s district, dropped off a fire escape with two bullets in the abdomen; after identifying her as Mei Chiang, a local undergrad, they track down a lead on Bryan Morrow, her reputedly possessive and emotionally unstable ex-boyfriend.

“God, I’m so glad I will never live in student housing again,” Amy says, her nose scrunching in displeasure as they climb scummy linoleum stairs to the third floor of a Crown Heights walkup.

“Oh hush, Wife-Prime,” Jake answers cheerfully, skipping over a step dotted with rat turds. “You could live in a cardboard box under a bridge and it would still be cleaner than most people’s underwear drawers.”

“That’s disgusting. But also flattering.”

“I'm so good to you. Which number is it again?”

“3C.” Amy leads the way back to the brown-painted door at the end of the hall. “Shall I do the honors?”

“Nah, let me. I know the secret bro-knock.” Jake pushes past her and knocks out _Shave and a Haircut_ on the door. “NYPD, open up!”

Amy rolls her eyes as he grins at her. “Secret bro-knock?”

“That’s the point, no one would ever expect _that_ to be a secret kno—”

Amy’s reflexes kick in before her brain does. The faint whisper of a cocked hammer, the flicker of light on the gun barrel as it pokes through the opening door, the shaking hand wrapped around the grip—she remembers these details later, but in the moment her mind is a blank as she dives at Jake’s legs, knocking them out from under him so that he collapses in a heap and the bullet screams overhead, not straight through his neck like it would have done a half-second earlier.

Bryan Morrow fires another two rounds, but they impact on the wall and floor; then Amy rises up from the floor and tackles him around the waist. He goes down, gun arm arcing up toward the ceiling, and she’s wrestling for the weapon, her grip iron on his forearm, but his finger squeezes again on the trigger, the hallway explodes in a roar of gunfire, and with a spurt of blood Amy shouts and flinches back—

Then Jake descends, his knee on Morrow’s chest and his own weapon drawn, and suddenly Morrow screams as his wrist twists and sprains and the gun clatters away across the filthy floor of his apartment.

Jake hauls Morrow over onto his stomach and cuffs him mechanically, looking over his shoulder for Amy. She’s curled up against the doorjamb, clutching her left upper arm. A purplish-red wetness spreads from beneath her palm.

“Amy, what—” His voice isn’t his own, it’s inside-out or hollow or something. She hisses, her eyes clear as glass and sharp with pain.

“Through and through,” she says through gritted teeth. “The casing—somewhere by the baseboard—”

“I’m calling for backup, _don’t move_ ,” Jake says, and again his voice sounds like an alien’s. Beneath him, Bryan Morrow is sobbing nonsense words. Jake fights the urge to shut him up with several thousand kicks to the teeth.

The backup and the ambulance take what feels like a million years to arrive; by the time the uniforms and the paramedics appear on the third floor, Amy is pale and trembling, her sleeve and much of her shirt soaked through with blood. Jake has stuffed Morrow in the corner and made her a tourniquet out of his shoelace, but she’s still coming dangerously close to shock. Her breathing is shallow, and her eyes keep sliding out of focus; her cheek is cold under his fingers. Jake tries to keep her talking, listing the sequence of events, laying out the facts of the case. Most of what he says is purposefully wrong, because he knows if anything bugs Amy enough to keep her conscious through severe blood loss, it’s a factual inaccuracy.

It works for a little while: Amy argues with him as they load her onto a stretcher, her voice weak but insistent as they carry her down the three flights of stairs and towards the front door. But she finally passes out mid-sentence as the paramedics are loading her into the ambulance. They pull her away from him, leaving him standing by a police car, covered in Amy’s blood. Jake can’t go with her; he has to stay and take Morrow to the precinct for processing. As he watches the gurney roll into the back of the ambulance, all he wants to do is scoop his wife into his arms and run until death gives up and stops chasing them.

For Amy’s sake, for his own sake, he tries to keep calm, keep sane, to act like the trained detective that he is and not like a crazed husband. Through the drive back to the Nine-Nine, the handoff to Terry, Rosa taking him to the hospital—through it all, Jake is the ultimate working spouse. Which is fine up until the hospital, when an ER doctor tells him Amy is going to be okay and he has to go hyperventilate in a supply closet for a few minutes.

She needs stitches, multiple blood transfusions, and they keep her overnight for observation. Amy tries to send him home, pointing out that his bloody clothes make him a walking biohazard and he hasn’t eaten since the Frosted Flakes he had for lunch. In response, Jake calls Charles to bring him a shirt from his apartment, buys a chocolate chip muffin (for which he has no appetite), and spends the entire night in Amy’s horribly uncomfortable hospital bed, face buried in her hair, stroking her hand with his thumb and trembling at the faint thoughts of what this day might have been like.

* * *

 

The better friends they become, the more competitive they are.

Amy’s first big bust is a serial rapist who’s been targeting female dog walkers. After two months of tracking the guy, she gets him dead to rights, actually catching him in the act of stalking another victim. It’s a public victory, one that wins her a lot of points in the precinct and in the department.

Jake is both happy for her and extremely envious. That night, when the squad goes out to celebrate at Shaw’s, he buys her a drink and then immediately challenges her to darts.

“Darts? Like, the game?” is her answer. Jake rolls his eyes.

“No, the yoga position. C’mon, Santiago, show me what you’ve got!”

“Why should I?” Amy demands, sipping her Manhattan. “I’m the one who closed a giant case and saved the city from evil.”

“So you’re chicken, basically.” Jake knows which button to push; he also knows that he can count on Charles to go “ooooooooooo” in the background. Amy glares at him, her hand tightening around her glass.

“I am not _chicken_. For your information, Peralta, I’m great at darts.”

“Sure you are.”

“I am!”

“Then play me and prove it!”

Amy chews her tongue for a moment, then makes a decision: in one smooth movement, she drains her drink—the fifth of the night, by Jake’s count (not that he’s counting, or noticing the flush in her cheeks, or the way she’s wearing her hair tonight)—and grabs the handful of darts from Jake.

“Be prepared to get _crushed_ , little man.”

“Not if I crush you first, little woman.”

“You’re going down, Peralta.”

“Gonna wipe the floor with you, Santiago.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!

“Oh—”

“Jesus Christ, you two, either fuck or play,” Rosa barks.

Amy freezes, her mouth open; then, blushing furiously, she turns to the board and throws a dart. It flies wild and sticks in a tabletop, nearly skewering Terry’s hand.

“Hey, watch it! Terry needs that for fine motor skills!”

“Sorry, Sarge!” she calls, cringing. Jake smirks.

“Now let me show you how a real cop throws darts.” He picks up a dart, aims, and lets fly; it whizzes through the air and lodges itself in a nearby picture frame, about a foot to the left of the board.

Rosa snorts. “You both suck so bad it’s not even funny. Except it is. Because you suck.”

“Best two out of three,” Amy growls. Jake pokes his finger into her shoulder.

“You’re on.”

By the end of the night, they’ve poked holes in three stool cushions, the lapel of Charles’ snew blazer, and Scully’s foot (not that he can feel it). As aggravating as it is not to have a triumph to eclipse Santiago’s, Jake settles for a great time laughing and drinking with Amy as their aim grows progressively worse.

And anyway, the next week he makes four felony arrests without breaking a sweat, which drives Amy up the wall. So it all evens out, in the end.

* * *

 

“To Jake and Amy!”

“To Jake and Amy!”

Terry’s toast is echoed by the rest of the squad across the dim floor of Shaw’s Bar. Amy stands beside Jake, her fingers linked through his, with a whiskey sour clutched in her other hand. She can’t stop smiling.

While the injury she sustained on the Chiang case had healed relatively quickly, Amy was still anxious that the incident might call her and Jake’s ability to work as partners into question. On the contrary, both of them were commended for their quick thinking and smart police work in an emergency situation, and Holt ended their trial period early. Tonight, the whole Nine-Nine is celebrating their most recently closed case: a joint effort to track, infiltrate, and arrest a ring of illegal organ sales operating out of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Jake has particularly enjoyed the case, referring to it as “The Mummy Returns: Bed-Stuy Edition.”

“Congrats, you two,” Charles says, beaming up at them. “Such a power couple!”

“We totally are,” Jake says, nodding in agreement. “I’m Sharkboy and Amy is Lavagirl, right babe?”

“No idea what you’re talking about, but sure,” she says, sipping her drink. “My niece Stephanie says lava powers are very ‘in’ these days.”

Terry snaps his fingers. “Does she read the _Volcano Vera_ books? My twins love _Volcano Vera_!”

“Um…maybe?”

“Nice,” Terry said, nodding. “Volcano Vera is a great role model. Terry loves feminism for all ages.”

“Wow,” says Jake, waving goodbye as Terry heads over to the bar for another beer. “He really ran with that volcano analogy, didn’t he?”

“Technically it was a metaphor, since you didn’t use comparative phraseology,” Amy sighs, draining her drink and then draping her arms around his neck. His skin is warm against hers, and he smells like Brooklyn Lager and the organic detergent her brother-in-law convinced her to buy. “And it was a good one. You have a sharky nose!”

“What?” Jake jerks away from her as she runs a finger over the bridge of his nose. “No I don’t. Stop. You’re a sharky nose.”

“Good comeback.” Amy can feel the one drink she’s had settle in her stomach and veins, warming her up, loosening her joints. Jake’s hands are wide and firm on her hips. “Nice work on the case, Detective Peralta.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself, Detective Santiago,” he replies, a smile tugging at his mouth. Amy scratches gently at the side of his neck. All the sounds of the people and the bar around them seem to be muffled and muted, from somewhere far away and unimportant.

“Y’know…” she mumbles, half to herself. Jake pulls her a little closer.

“What’s that?”

“I’m just thinking, there will be other nights. At Shaw’s, I mean. There will be other nights out, with the squad, at Shaw’s.” Her fingernails are still drawing little circles on the side of his neck. Amy feels a shiver go through him.

“You wanna head home?” Jake’s voice is low and a little rough. He’s also grinning like an idiot. Amy smirks.

“Maybe a little.”

Jake kisses her then, once, just a quick, hard press of his lips against hers, but it makes her suck in her breath and squirm a little, and then before she knows it he’s moving through the crowd, pulling her by the hand, grabbing their coats from the hooks by the door and apologizing to Charles over his shoulder—“Another time, buddy, we’ll play celebration backgammon another time”—and before she knows it, they’re out on the street, cold damp air nipping at her bare skin.

He kisses her again, and this time it’s the kind of kiss that goes down to her toes, his mouth moving strong on hers, one broad hand in her hair and the other pulling her flush against him. She gasps into his mouth and wraps her arms back around his neck. The way they are, the way they move together, can be overwhelming sometimes, just the need to pull into each other. Jake sucks her tongue into his mouth and exhales sharply through his nose, clutching her waist. Amy’s head spins, her teeth press into his upper lip, one leg lifts briefly off the ground and threads behind his calf. 

When Jake pulls back, he’s breathing pretty heavy. Which is fine, because she’s breathing heavy too. They stare at each other, kind of stunned, and for the millionth time Amy wonders when married life is going to get boring.

“Let’s go,” Jake growls, and the sound of it sends a pulse of warmth through Amy’s hips. He grabs her hand again and starts off down the street; but a few seconds later, he stops abruptly, so abruptly that Amy nearly runs into him.

“Jake? What’s wrong?”

“I…um…I forgot where I parked the car.” He’s frowning, scanning up and down the street. Amy groans and drops her head onto his shoulder.

“Jake…”

“No, wait, gimme a sec—”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Has this always been a one-way street?”

“JAKE!”                                                             

Twenty minutes, eight blocks, and a lot of name-calling later, they locate the car. Amy drives (“I don’t trust you to find the way home”) and Jake sulks (“There was _construction_ , Amy, they were _constructing_ , last time I checked you’re not allowed to park in a _constructified_ area,”) and by the time they get home, the mood is a little less…heady.

Jake gets out of the passenger side and follows Amy as she climbs the stairs to the front door of their apartment building. “I’m just saying—”

“Stop it.”

“I’m just _saying,_ you took the long way home.”

“There’s no such _thing_ as ‘the long way,’ Jake, it’s the God damn Ocean Parkway!”

“Just saying.”

“I swear, Jake, I’m going to murder you in your sleep one of these days.”

“Joke’s on you, I’ll just stop sleeping during the day!”

“That’s not what—I—rrrrrrgh!” Amy smashes the button for their floor, whirls around, and shoves Jake against the aluminum paneling of the elevator wall. “Shut up, can you just, for _once_ , shut up!”

“Make me, Santiago.”

When he says it, there is not a single hint of sexual subtext. He’s genuinely as pissy as she is in that moment, just as ticked off about the car and the parking and the driving and wanting to continue the fight, wanting to get under her skin. He’s Jake and she’s Amy and they drive each other insane sometimes, that’s just what they do.

But it’s not like it was in the beginning. Now they have an alternative to verbal sparring, a whole different battlefield on which to engage when words cease to satisfy. So Jake says, “Make me,” and Amy doesn’t snap back; instead, she grabs his face in both hands and kisses him hard, _hard_ , so that the back of his head bounces off the metal wall and her teeth actually click against his.

Jake doesn’t miss a beat. His hands are under Amy’s coat in a flash, digging into her ass as he yanks her into him. Amy has her fingers in his hair now, raking it back into ridiculous tufts, her other hand fisted in the front of his shirt. Jake moans as she sucks on his lip and their noses bump. The breathless sounds of desperate, almost violent kissing fill the cramped elevator as it creaks upwards. It’s very hot in there, all of a sudden.

Jake pushes Amy away from him, walks her backwards until she’s pressed up against the opposite wall. His tongue goes to the curve of her neck, his hands slide down to the backs of her thighs, and he hoists her up, pressing her into the cold metal paneling, grinding against her, swearing filthy and low in a way that makes her shake all over, and Amy can feel how hard he already is, she she wraps her legs around his waist and presses into him—

Then it turns out that’s not a wall he has her pinned to, it’s the elevator doors, and they’ve reached their floor.

The doors roll open and Amy’s stomach lurches as she and Jake suddenly careen backwards into the hallway. They come very close—very, very, way-too-close—to falling ass-first into Mrs. Lowelski’s door, which would suck, because Amy is pretty sure that the combined impact of two adult bodies on that front door would be loud enough to wake up Mrs. Lowelski’s Schnauzer, Gordy, and Gordy is yappy as all hell, and if Gordy gets going then Mrs. Lowelski will get going, and while Mrs. Lowelski likes Jake (he’s a Nice Jewish Boy with an police badge), she really doesn’t like Amy, for reasons that have to do with racism and also the time Amy gave Gordy a bit of her homemade chicken salad and then he had to go to the vet for a week.

Anyways. Jake’s core strength must be improving, because he _just_ manages to keep a hold on Amy and not go barreling across the hall into Mrs. Lowelski’s front door. She clings to him like a koala on a tree branch, face jammed into his shoulder, her heart pounding, waiting for a yappy Schnauzer and a racist Polish woman to make a sudden appearance—but after a moment or two of silence, it becomes clear that they’re safe. She slowly lifts her head and looks Jake in the eye: he’s breathing hard, eyes bulging, cheeks blown out and lips pursed like a goldfish as he struggles to hold onto her and stay upright.

He looks like such an idiot, and he can be so annoying, and he’s such a good person in spite of it all, that Amy can’t help it. She starts giggling. She buries her face back into his shoulder, shaking with laughter, and even when Jake drops her and she stumbles to the ground, unsteady on her feet, she’s still laughing. But it’s fine, because Jake is laughing too.

“Why do we suck at everything?” she whispers through snorts of mirth. Jake leans on the wall and wipes his forehand with the back of his sleeve, chuckling helplessly.

“Because all our skillz go into being amazing detective slash geniuses.”

“That makes sense.”

“Right?” he giggles, trying and failing to smooth down his hair. Amy reaches out and takes his hand.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I know we’re doing really badly at it so far, but I’d still like to have sex with you tonight.”

Jake sighs, his face suddenly serious. “I dunno, Ames. I’m kinda not in the mood anymore, y’know?

Amy’s heart sinks. “Oh…really?”

“Yeah.” He tugs her hand towards their door. “Maybe an episode of _Pawn Stars_ before bed?”

“Of course. Sounds nice.”

Amy follows Jake down the hall, utterly dejected. She watches as he takes out his key and opens the door, longing for what those fingers will not be doing tonight.

“Oh hey, Ames?” One foot in the door, Jake turns and looks back at her. His hair is still standing up at ridiculous angles, and she can see the faint outline of a bite mark on his neck.

“What?”

“Psych.”

He yanks her through the entryway by her wrist; a second later, she’s pinned against the door, gasping as Jake rips her coat, shirt, and bra off with his hands and teeth. Another few seconds and he’s on his knees in front of her, undoing her belt and shoving her pants and underwear down to her ankles, and then— _oh God._

Amy gasps, her head falling back against the door. He’s buried in her, tongue fluttering and laving and occasionally jabbing into the sensitive opening, and meanwhile he works one leg out of the puddle of her pants so he can drape it over his shoulder, and Amy is moaning really loud, like too loud for a Wednesday night, and her bare ass is thumping arrythmically against the door as she grinds up against Jake’s mouth, but can you blame her, can you _really_ blame her?

It takes another few minutes, a hand on her right breast, and one slow finger that relentlessly curls and curls and curls inside of her, but Amy comes harder than she remembers coming in a while, going blind, going deaf, going somewhere far away for long seconds of unbelievable pleasure. When she comes down, shaking and barely able to stand upright, she realizes that she was tugging on Jake’s hair with full strength: he’s looking up at her now, face shiny with sweat (and with her), and there are tears of what’s probably pain in his eyes.

“I’m…oh God, I’m sorry, Jake, did I… _oh_ , fuck…” She can barely make it through her apology, she’s so blissed out. Jake grins and nuzzles her inner thigh.

“You didn’t fuck _yet_ , technically.” He gingerly gets off his knees—the front hall is hardwood—and she looks down to see the outline of his erection pressing against his jeans. “But please, take your time, I’m easy.”

“Sure thing, bucko,” Amy says, and lazily reaches down to undo the top button on his pants. Jake sucks in a sharp breath as she draws down his fly and reaches inside his briefs, grabbing hold of him with her left hand. “How’s that?”

“Like I s-said…I’m…easy…” Jake breathes. Still floating in her post-orgasm haze, Amy treats herself to a little leisurely exploration of familiar territory: stroking Jake slowly and gently with her left hand, she uses her right hand to peel his jacket off, shoulder by shoulder, letting it fall to the ground behind him. The buttons on his shirt go next, one by one—Jake tries to help, but she bats him away and squeezes insistently with her left hand, sending a shudder through him—and then the shirt itself, following the jacket, down onto the floor with her clothes.

The T-shirt is last, and by now Amy has started moving faster with her left hand, which isn’t easy (she’s tried a couple times to teach herself to be ambidextrous, and this is yet another situation where that would have come in handy—no pun intended), but Jake is pretty far gone at this point, she doesn’t need to roll out any fancy tricks, just the steady sweep and pressure of her palm and fingers is enough to draw ragged moans from his throat, unbalance him so that he falls forward and braces himself with his palms against the wall on either side of her shoulders, his head bowed to reveal a flush creeping up the back of his neck. She can feel him starting to thrust into her hand, and she doesn’t actually want it to end like this, she’s got plans, so Amy pulls her hand out of his pants—he huffs out a groan—and yanks his T-shirt off, and about fifteen impatient seconds later they’re in their bed.

Sex is no exception to their competitive streak. Sometimes they’ll lie next to each other, hips to heads, and fight to see whose focus and whose mouth holds out the longest. Sometimes Amy will ride Jake for as long as she can and longer, past the point where her thighs are burning and her abs are shot, just for the thrill of control, just so she can watch him watch her with those wide, wondering eyes, or so she can slow down to make him scrabble and beg, then suddenly plunge and pull and see, from start to finish, the beauty of Jake when he is overwhelmed by sensation, when he really lets go. Sometimes, Jake will lay Amy on her side and take her from behind, his arm curled over her hip, fingers working at her while he steadily pulses in between her legs, and she knows that he’s enjoying the chance to control her too: the helpless expression on her face, the unconscious spasms that have her clutching at the sheets and at him, the rising tide of whimpers and gasps and ragged sobs of pleasure...all the vulnerability and trust that she so treasures receiving from him, are hers to give.

And then sometimes it’s just about getting there. Tonight Jake is on top of her, one hand guiding himself in, and then his rhythm is set, and Amy—she can barely think straight, with him heavy and hot and panting over her like this. She plants a foot on the mattress and sinks her nails into his back, biting hard on her lower lip as Jake grunts and strains and the sheets twists under her shoulders. It’s thick, fast, not especially tender, but so is life sometimes, so is passion, and Amy’s body thanks her for letting go like this, for turning off the endless analysis and just _feeling_ —

Jake comes with a shout, comes hard and strong enough that the final few thrusts actually shove Amy up against the headboard and she may have a painful crick in her neck tomorrow, damn it. Her own orgasm is still a little ways away, but it’s all right, Jake will take care of her—whatever his failings may be, he _never_ forgets to do that—and besides, she’s already come once tonight, so she’s not as impatient as she could be.

He collapses on top of her, breathing like he just finished a half-marathon (not even in hypotheticals could Jake finish a full marathon). She strokes his sweaty, burning-hot skin and kisses his temple.

“ _God_ …you’re amazing…” he gasps in her ear. She giggles.

“Yeah, and I even remember where the car is parked.”

“Whatever,” Jake murmurs. He lies there, limp and exhausted, until she knees him in the thigh; then he rolls off her, keeping one arm draped across her waist and a leg in between hers. “I love you a billion, Ames.”

“Love you too.” She doesn’t want to rush him, but she doesn’t want to lose the glow either, so Amy squeezes her thighs around Jake’s and begins to slowly rock against the top of his leg. It’s just enough to keep her warm and wanting.

“…oh, _man_ …that was great…”

“Mrs. Lowelski will be pissed.”

“She can go jump in the Hudson.” Jake’s color is returning to normal now. “We weren’t _that_ loud.”

“I think I heard the bathroom mirror shatter when you came.”

“Amy, if that were true, I’d call everyone I knew and tell them, and then I’d write a Hufflepuff Post article about it.”

“ _Huffington_ Post.”

“Again, I say, whatever.” Amy feels his hand on her belly, warm and calloused, sliding towards the joining of her legs. She relaxes her thighs and he accepts the invitation. “Now, let’s see what else we can shatter in this place…”

* * *

 

Amy has never been much of a “sharer.” Neither has Jake. Even after they become friends. Oh, they both enjoy a good whine every now and again, to blow off steam, and the occasional victory dance isn’t out of the question. Also, Jake is far too willing to discuss details of his sexual escapades with anyone who will listen.

(Amy disapproves.)

But when it comes to actual emotions that need to be actually expressed, Amy and Jake usually keep that noise bottled up. If Rosa and Charles represent the two extremes of “let me usher you into my World of Feelings,” there’s a lot of room for their coworkers to fall somewhere in between. And both Amy and Jake prefer to keep their World of Feelings exceedingly private.

Not that that always works.

It’s a late-night stakeout, the worst kind, when the assignment is to park by a location and _hope_ that someone, let alone the perp, goes in or out. The flickering red dashboard clock has just hit 3:00 am, it’s drizzling outside, and Amy is refusing to nap.

“Come _on_ , Santiago, it’s your turn. I can stare at a door for half an hour all by myself, I’m a big boy.”

“First of all, unless you want your nipple ripped off, never refer to yourself as a ‘big boy’ again,” Amy grumps. Jake’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Whoa. That was one evocative threat.”

“And second, I told you, I’m fine. Look,” she insists, pulling out two of her four thermoses of coffee. “I’m totally prepared to stay awake until the shift change. So stop setting the alarm on your phone and just go back to sleep.”

“Uh…yeah…” Jake eyes her thermoses, his brow furrowed. “I’ll just do that then.”

“Great.”

“I know it’s great.”

“It’s great that you know it’s great.”

“It’s great that you know that I know—”

“Shut up, Jake.”

Four minutes. Four minutes of silence is all she gets, before the voice of Jake Peralta cuts through it and makes her want to rip that nipple off after all. “Sooooo—”

“You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Oh Santiago, we both knew that wasn’t gonna happen. Not after you went all double-thermos on me.” Amy rolls her eyes and makes a mental note not to tell him about the other two thermoses. “What’s with the all-nighter? And more importantly, where did you plan to pee?”

“None of your business.”

“Which one?”

“Either. Both.”

“Ah, so a mystery presents itself!”

“No—”

“Let’s review the facts of the case, shall we?” Jake begins, one finger stuck in the air. Amy groans and drops her head against the cool window.

“You are the worst person.”

“Tough batoots, we’re in here for six more hours. Exhibit A: you, Amy Santiago, are a rules-freak. You’re what my mom would call a stickler. I’m sure you’d be off stickling all day if you had the chance.”

“Title of your sex tape,” Amy pipes up before she can stop herself. She winces, then looks over at Jake, whose grin is truly humongous.

“ _What_ did you just say?”

“Nothing. Shut up. Nothing.”

“Amy Santiago, I do declare. Never knew you had it in you,” Jake smirks. Amy wants to smack him—especially when he pokes her in the arm and goes “Eh? Eh? You know you wanna say it.”

“I want you to go far away.”

“Oh well. Exhibit A, Part Two: a stickler such as yourself would know that overnight stakeouts include mandatory sleep shifts for any and all officers on-duty. You would _never_ willingly break protocol—unless there were a reason. A _mysterious_ reason!”

Amy sighs and stares out the window. Nobody has even come near their target for more than an hour.

“Exhibit B: your phone, which you usually keep in your pocket at all times during official police business, so as to avoid the appearance of ‘slacking’ or ‘being chill.’” Jake points to her phone, which has been lying in her lap for most of the night. “You’ve had it out since we got in the car. Either you’re suddenly terrified that it might slip out of a hole in your pocket and fall through a sewer grate—”

“Has that happened to you?”

“Or,” he continues, pointedly ignoring her, “you don’t want to miss an incoming message. An _important_ message.”

Amy clutches her phone a little harder and goes back to staring at the door. Nothing.

“Exhibit C—”

“Uuuuuugh.”

“Don’t you want to hear what Exhibit C is?” he asks innocently.

Amy grinds her teeth. “No, actually, I don’t want to hear about Exhibit C, I don’t want to hear anything, I want you to just stop, stop talking, stop—being here, just leave me alone!”

The outburst surprises them both. Amy sighs and stares out the window as though she’s trying to will a suspect into being. She has a sudden, splitting headache. Beside her, Jake shifts in his seat; she wonders if she’s actually hurt his feelings. Not that Jake Peralta has many feelings to hurt.

“Exhibit C—”

“ _Oh my God.”_

“Exhibit C,” he repeats for a third time, and Amy squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her forehead against the Plexiglass. “You’re usually a lot of fun on stakeouts. Like, you bring puzzles and games and Fruit Leather, and it’s a little weird because neither of us is a toddler, but it’s still a really good time. I kinda, y’know, look forward to Santiago stakeouts.”

His voice is quiet and small, the way he talks when he’s uncomfortable with his own sincerity. Amy looks forward now, through the windshield, down the dark and litter-strewn street. She can feel Jake sitting next to her: the weight of his hand on the steering wheel, the heat radiating from folds of plaid flannel, the way he’s leaning ever so slightly in her direction. Jake is many things, and one of them is solid. He doesn’t disappear. Flake out and goof around and annoy her to pieces, maybe—but he’s never, ever left her hanging. Not when it matters.

“My brother’s at the hospital.” She hadn’t realized that her throat was so tight. “We’re all waiting, we’re supposed to wait to hear from my brother.”

“Is he—I mean, what’s wrong? If that’s okay to ask.”

Jake is picking at a hole in the upholstery of the unmarked cruiser’s front seat. She knows this because she can hear the sound— _pick, pick, pick—_ of his fingernails against the ragged upholstery. Not because she’s looking at him. Or can look at him.

“He’s fine. It’s his girlfriend who’s got something wrong, because she’s pregnant—not that being pregnant is wrong, I just mean there’s something wrong with her pregnancy—not _her_ , specifically, but her medical—things—”

_Pick. Pick. Pick._

“She woke up covered in blood. That’s what Xavi said, she was just covered. And she’s only seven months, so nobody is sure what—but that was this morning, and she’s been in surgery since then, and I just don’t think he’s that hopeful. My brother.”

The rain is coming harder now, and the windows are starting to steam up. Amy draws a line with her finger through the moisture on the glass.

“Mmmm.” He swallows. It’s so quiet she can literally hear him swallow. “That sucks, Amy. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He resumes picking at the hole in the car. “I know it’s not my _fault_ , I’m just saying…I mean, I wish that weren’t happening, y’know? I wish it weren’t happening to you.”

“Thanks.”

A couple walks by arm-in-arm, swaying a little, laughing in the rain. Amy watches them ignore the door of the stakeout target completely and round the corner.

“Are you close?” The question is conversational, like he’s asking her if she wants another piece of Fruit Leather.

“Who?”

“You and your brother, you and your…”

“They’re not married, but they’ve been together for five years.”

“Yeah, so your sister-in-not-law. You close?”

“Not to her.” Amy winces. “I feel bad saying that right now.”

“Dude, it’s the truth. It’s okay.”

“She’s just—we’re really different. She’s a marketing analyst, all her earrings are artisanal, she’s really into _The Bachelor_ …but I mean, Mariela is nice. She was so excited to get pregnant,” Amy says, becoming hoarse in spite of herself. “And Xavi’s like our _big-_ big brother, he’s the oldest, so we’re all close to him, y’know? Now he’s sitting there alone because he lives in frickin’ Cincinnati, and he might lose _everything_. He’s got two parents and seven siblings and we can’t protect him from this. We _always…_ ”

There’s no hiding the tears now; she can keep them from falling, but she can’t keep them out of her voice. Amy grabs hold of the door handle and shuts her eyes tight. She will not let go. She will not freak out.

Jake’s hand is so light on hers that she jumps involuntarily at his touch; he yanks his hand away as though burned, but both of them felt it. They both know what happened.

“You know, when I was—” He stops and clears his throat. Now it’s his turn to stare resolutely through the windshield, while Amy looks sideways through watery eyes. “When I was like six, I fell off a fire escape and broke my arm. There was bone poking through and everything…so like really cool. Except also really terrible. And the neighbors called an ambulance, but they couldn’t reach my mom at work and my dad was somewhere over Nebraska—also he never returned calls, the jackass.

“Anyway, I was sitting alone in the emergency room and I legit thought I was going to be alone forever. Like, my mom is gone, my dad’s gone for _good_ , and that’s all, that’s pretty much everyone I have.” Jake is rubbing his thumb over the hole he’s created in the upholstery, digging at it with his nail; Amy can see his knuckles going white. “So…I guess my point is, it totally sucks that you can’t stop crappy things from happening to your brother, but the fact that you’re staying up all night waiting to be there for him…that definitely makes a difference. It would make a difference to me.”

Those are the last words either of them says for a long time. The darkness and the rain and the fear make it hard for Amy to track time, but she does know that at some point, her hand is suddenly holding Jake’s, and that when her phone vibrates with a text message, he gasps right along with her.

* * *

 

Having a baby is technically not that complicated. First sex, then pregnant, then boom! Little wriggling human-nugget.

Jake wishes Amy were as easily swayed by that argument as he was.

They both want kids, is the thing. No disagreement there. But Amy has a Five-Year Plan, and children don’t come into it for a while: after she’s made Sergeant, but before she’s awarded her own precinct (and/or the key to the city). Jake respects that: after all, he’s not the one who’s going to spend twelve months gaining twice his body weight and dealing with vaginal contractions.

(He also needs a little time to fact-check what he knows about pregnancy, because he’s pretty sure most of it is extremely inaccurate.)

A year goes past, and Amy passes the Sergeant’s exam. After the celebrating and subsequent anxiety attacks, it’s only natural (Jake assumes) that they get started on the next steps of the Plan: having kids, going on a trip, and buying a better microwave.

But for some reason, Amy is reluctant. First she supplies reasons: she’s tired from all the studying, HR training is a bitch, she’s busy researching precincts that might want a newly minted Sergeant in the next two to three years. After four months, she avoids the topic of children and babies altogether. After six, she’s started to avoid _him_.

It’s driving Jake crazy. Sure, he wants kids, but he doesn’t want her to feel like she has to make up excuses about why she _doesn’t._ If she’s changed her mind, and she doesn’t want to be a mother or have that kind of family with him…well, they need to figure it out. But avoiding the subject is massively unhelpful.

When he does bring it up, he can see in her eyes how scared she is, and that clinches it: he’d rather Talk About Feelings, excruciating as it can be, than ever let her feel like that because of him.

“Amy, whatever the problem is, I’m not going anywhere. I may not, like, jump for joy, but—no, fuck it, if you want me to jump I’ll pull out the trampoline.”

“The mattress is not a toy, Jake, you can’t—”

“Not literally! Just—I’m here, okay? I’m part of your team. Tell me what’s up.”

That night is a long one spent curled up on their living room couch, and during the course of it Jake mostly listens. He listens as she admits how terrified she is of disappointing him, her doubts that there’s a single maternal bone in her body, even decade-old anxieties about the depression and stress that her own mother failed to hide from her eight children. She brings up valid points, like how they can possibly coordinate their schedules to raise a baby, or the fact that their apartment is a third-floor walkup with old (lead-based?) paint in the halls. She even mentions Mariela’s miscarriage, the only one in the Santiago family’s recent history, and tells him how often she’s had dreams about waking up wrapped in bloody sheets.

Jake lets it all flow. He’ll pipe up when she freaks herself out (“No, Amy, I seriously doubt that we’re long-lost relatives and our children will have extra toes”) and he’ll soothe her through the toughest admissions, but mostly he just lets her say everything she’s been too afraid to admit to him, or even to herself.

Somewhere around one a.m., after a few tears and many mugs of tea, Amy lays her head on his chest and breathes deeply. “So…”

“So?”

“Do you hate me?”

“For _what?_ ”

Her fingers curl in his shirt. “For all of the insanity I just dumped on you.”

Jake gently noogies her head. “You’re not insane. You’re a little freaked, which makes sense to me, since I’m totally freaked and we haven’t even decided that we’re going to have kids yet.”

“Jake, I want to…I want us to have a family.” She’s speaking into his chest again, eyes downcast. “I’m just not sure I can do it.”

He presses gently at her jaw with his fingertips, tipping her head back so that he can make eye contact. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“What?”

“Amy Santiago, you can do anything. Absolutely anything. And whatever you can’t do,” he adds, grinning, “I can.”

“Jake…”

“Hey, we’ll wait another year if you want. We can wait another five years. When we do this—and I want to do it—it should be something you’re excited about.”

“…I love you.”

“You really should. I’m quite grand.”

She pinches him. They make out for a few minutes and then haul their overworked butts to bed.

A month later, Amy goes off her birth control. Two days after that, she casually mentions this to Jake. His initial response (“Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool, getting all fertile up in here, no doubt no doubt”) is relatively low-key. The dance he does after she leaves the room is not.

* * *

 

Given how many siblings Amy has, it surprises no one that the actual “conception” part of baby-having is nigh instantaneous. Her mother even warns her: “All the women in my family are like that, mija, we can’t brush our teeth or cross the street without getting knocked up.”

Amy blushes and groans in response, but only a couple weeks after she and Jake start having unprotected (and frequent) sex, she goes to the doctor—just in case, she tells herself, just for a checkup—and by the end of the day, the news is in. Amy Santiago is super-duper pregnant.

Everyone at the Nine-Nine reacts differently:

Boyle bursts into tears and embraces her and Jake, sobbing about gifts from Heaven and godfathers and womb-shaped jelly molds;

Rosa grunts “Whoopie” and punches Jake twice in the shoulder (“Once for you and once for Amy, she’s got enough pain coming”);

Hitchcock and Scully are asleep;

Terry is beaming and offering to give them every single baby book and hand-me-down onesie he and Sharon have to spare;

Gina just gags;

And Captain Holt simply nods, his face unreadable as he shakes both of their hands and says “Fine work.”

“Thank you, sir, I thought so.”

Amy’s palm slaps her forehead. “Shut up, Jake.”

Over the next few months, things begin to change very quickly in the Santiago-Peralta household. It becomes apparent that Amy can no longer keep up her normal hectic pace, because her once-boundless energy is suddenly swirling down a vast, pregnant drain. In practice, though, Amy refuses to acknowledge this. On top of the regular craziness of a Detective-Sergeant’s schedule, Amy is researching every possible approach to pregnancy and motherhood that has ever or will ever exist: Stroller-Mom, Marsupial Mom, which cribs are most ergonomic, how to make her own babyfood out of carrots, silken tofu, and orange rind…she’s even trying to learn how to knit, because mothers do that. (Kylie is teaching her, but she privately admits to Jake that Amy has neither the patience nor what Kylie calls the "shit-giving capacity" to be a decent knitter.) On top of everything, she’s planned the whole pregnancy out to a week-by-week basis, from doctors’ appointments and sonograms to flexibility goals in pre-natal yoga. Her pregnancy binder is a work of art. Amy is possibly the most efficient person to ever be with child.

The problem is, she keeps passing out and drooling on stuff.

“Ames?” Jake says gently one evening, rubbing her back where she lies sprawled on the couch. When he’d left to pick up their takeout, she’d been pouring over a book called _Cuttlefish Love: Advantages of Being A Maternal Mollusk._ “You okay, babe?”

“Guh…hmmm,” she mumbles, a chunk of hair falling into her mouth. Jake laughs and brushes it away as he helps her sit up. “Did I fall asleep again?”

“’Fraid so.”

“Oh, come on!” She frowns and thumps the hardcover book jacket. “This is bullshit. I’m supposed to be pregnant, not narcoleptic.”

“Well, I’d love you even if you were narkle—knuckle—Napoleon-tastic.”

“Thanks.” Amy groans. “You know I’ve been trying to get through this book for four days? If this were college, I’d have an A-minues avergage. A-minus!”

Jake struggles to keep a straight face. “Don’t you use that foul language around Amy Junior.”

“Seriously, Jake. We have to figure this out.” As she speaks, Amy pulls the bag of warm Indian food out of his hands and starts unpacking plastic containers. That’s another thing about pregnancy: even two and a half months in, her appetite is a force unto itself. “If I’m going to work _and_ manage the baby thing _and_ stay on schedule, you’re going to have to be way more vigilante about waking me up. This crazy sleep-cycle can’t derail me, there’s a timetable at stake.”

“Ah yes, the Trimester Table.”

“Don’t call it that.” She practically inhales a samosa, and is about to start on a second one when she notices that he isn’t fighting her for them. “You can eat, Jake, I’m not gonna bite your hand off. Unless you go for the saag paneer.”

“Listen, babe…” Jake begins, choosing his words carefully; unfortunately, his wife is a detective, and her eyes narrow as she hears the strategy in his voice. “Maybe instead of trying to work harder and do _more_ , you should take it a little _easier_ and do…less?”

“NO.”

“Well, counter-argument—”

“No, Jake! Just because I’m growing a human inside my guts doesn’t mean I have to do anything else differently!”

“Not even—”

“ _Anything._ I’m Amy Santiago and the rest of you can go suck on it, so there.”

Amy begins furiously eating saag paneer. Jake decides to focus all of his attention on the samosas, since none of them are yelling at him.

Twenty minutes later, Amy is snoring on the couch again, her head in his lap, while a rerun of _Parks & Recreation _plays muted on TV.

This routine last another three weeks, until Amy is called into Holt’s office for a short conference. She goes in with the typical wide-eyed glow that Amy gets whenever Holt says her name, and emerges—less glowing. In fact, she looks downright gloomy.

“Hey babe, how’s it going?” Jake asks, all casual and totally-not-concerned, as Amy plunks herself down at her desk. She avoids his gaze, her hair falling in her face.

“Fine.”

“You sure?”

“Mmmm,” Amy grunts. She shuffles papers around, moving a stack of blue-tabbed files into the green-tab bin. That’s how Jake knows she’s really upset.

She finally spills the beans an hour later, in the privacy of the evidence locker.

“Holt made me set a date,” she says. She’s sitting on a stack of boxes, her elbows on her knees and her chin propped on her fists, looking so despondent that Jake immediately resolves to go by Boyle’s favorite gourmet bakery after work and pick up her favorite cocoa-banana-avocado muffin. (It sounds too gross for words, but she’s pregnant and he loves her and his favorite breakfast is orange soda with Cocoa Puffs, so he can’t judge.)

“For what?”

“For desk duty.” She spits the words like they taste bad. “After May 10th, I’m chained to a desk until my legs shrivel up and fall off and my brain melts and I just become a big pregnant blob doing paperwork, paperwork, paperwork!”

Jake’s eyes are wide. “Did you just…complain about paperwork?”

“I did! God damn it!” Amy jumps to her feet and kicks an old carton. “This baby is turning me against everything I love most!”

Jake keeps his distance while she rages, mostly because he knows exactly how strong she is and he doesn’t want an (accidental) broken nose. When it looks like the worst of the storm is passing, he tentatively reaches out for her; to his surprise, she collapses against him, suddenly sobbing, her cheeks hot and damp.

“Ames…”

“I’m so tired, Jake,” she gasps, her tears smearing wet patches on his shirt collar. “I’m so, so, so, _so_ tired, working and doing the research and sticking to the Trimester Table, and my emotions are weird and screwed up, and I can’t even have coffee, I hate it, I can’t…I can’t do this, I can’t do it.”

“Shhhh.” He rocks her back and forth in his arms and lets his head drop onto her shoulder. “Man, you just need to learn every lesson the hard way, don’t you?”

“Look who’s fucking talking,” she says, holding him tighter. They stand like that for a while, breathing, Amy’s weight supported more by Jake than by her own two legs. When she pulls away, he keeps his hands on her waist as she wipes her eyes and snuffles.

“You okay?” Jake asks, rubbing her side gently with his thumb. Amy shrugs and continues to scrub at her eyes.

“I mean, I guess so. I was so pissed at Holt, the way he just…sat there and told me _when_ I’d be taking time off the field, like it was his choice, like I don’t have a say. I _know_ it’s the rule,” she says irritably when Jake opens his mouth. “But he could have at least asked my permission. He could have at least pretended to include me.”

Amy sighs then, and rubs her stomach absently. There’s a slight swelling there, where she’s normally got tighter and leaner curves. “Once you get pregnant, everyone kind of puts themselves in charge of your body, and it’s not cool. I’m still a person, I’m gonna take care of myself.” Her fingers caress the bump gently, and her eyes turn inward. “I’m gonna take care of us.”

Jake swallows as he looks down at Amy’s hand where it rests on her stomach, over what will turn into a baby— _their_ baby. His own hand floats up by itself, and Amy sees, smiles, grabs hold and slides his palm across her abdomen so that they’re joined for a moment, just a little family gathering in the evidence locker.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry you’re feeling so shitty, and I’m sorry that nobody knows how to talk to you about it—”

“It’s okay, I’m just whining,” she starts, but he keeps going over her.

“Aaaaaand I’m also sorry if I sound like just another bossy jerkface when I tell you that you’re crazy if you think I’m going to be okay with you living like this.”

“I—what?” She drops his hand. Jake knows he’s not going to be making many fans with this statement—well, any fans, since there’s only one he could make and she’s gonna want to yell at him—but he says it out of love, so brownie points in _some_ ethical dimension, right?

“Amy Santiago, you are the most competent, driven, deeply caring woman I have ever met. You’re also deeply deficient in chill. And usually that’s a good thing, because there are people like me in this world, who may have a surfpot of chill—”

“Surfeit?”

“Ugh, _whatever_ , you have no chill and I have all the chill and that’s great until I get you pregnant. You actually can’t work yourself to death.”

“I’m not—I don’t—last year you worked that murder case even though you had walking pneumonia!”

“Yeah, because the guy was found alone in a basement, stabbed through the neck and lying in a pool of water, he was clearly the victim of a devilish serial killer acting out famous riddles—wait, no, that’s not the point!” He waves his hands and adjusts the badge hanging on a chain around his neck; like shaking an Etch-A-Sketch, the movement helps to clear his head. “If you keep going at your normal pace, you’re going to get really sick, Ames. You’re going to risk your health, the baby’s health—for God’s sake, there may be a trail of typos in your wake! _Typos,_ Amy!”

Amy has her arms crossed and her head tilted to the side, but her lips aren’t pursed and her eyes are soft. Jake recognizes a win when he sees one. “Really, I’m not…I’m not trying to tell you what’s best for your body, or how to live your life. When it comes to the whole baby-growing thing, I’m Captain of the Santiago Cheer Squad.” He tentatively puts his hands on her waist again, and she doesn’t stop him. “But I love you, and when you love someone, you take care of them. Or at least you make sure they don’t end up crying in the evidence locker.”

After a moment or two, she relaxes against him again, her head falling to his shoulder. He holds her for a few minutes, their breathing in sync, their arms loose and warm around each other. When she pulls back, she rolls her eyes.

“I don’t like it.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to give me a bedtime or anything.”

“Ooh, kinky.”

She snorts and flicks him in the neck. Jake smiles and kisses her. Amy’s lips are warm on his.

A sudden and violent pounding on the door startles them both and makes them jump.

“Come _on_ , you losers! You’ve been in there for like fifteen minutes! Some of us are doing actual police work, we need actual evidence!”

“Oh my God,” Amy moans, and Jake bites his tongue as he goes to let Rosa in. She sweeps past him in a swirl of black leather and irate curls.

“Oh _heeeeeeeeey_ , Rosa, funny meeting you here! Amy and I were just standing here, _many_ feet apart, casually discussing the weather—”

“I do not care at all,” Rosa growls, hunting around. She elbows Amy out of the way and yanks a labeled bag out of a dusty carton. Without another look, she strides back out, slamming the door behind her.

“Well,” Jake says, as Amy drops her head into her hands, “I’d say that was a pretty solid omen right there, wouldn’t you?

* * *

 

The first Secret Santa that Amy and Jake are at the Nine-Nine, they draw each other.

Jake buys Amy a whoopee cushion. Amy buys Jake a personal planner. They say "thank you" and promptly shove their presents into the backs of their closets.

Two Secret Santas after that, Jake draws Amy. Having recently gone even further into debt (turntable #3), he’s searching through his apartment for something that he can throw a bow on and call a present. He finds the planner. It’s perfect.

Amy recognizes it immediately, not least because she wrote a nice but impersonal note to him in the front cover. She takes the re-gift and never says a word. Jake is proud of himself for giving on a budget.

Three years later, Amy draws Jake. They’re deskmates by now, and they’re close, and when he opens his present—a deluxe DVD collection of all the _Die Hard_ movies, complete with extra special-features and a limited-edition poster—he feels like the worst friend in the world. So even though he’s not her Secret Santa, he gets her a gift too.

Amy works Christmas Eve, and she works late. Jake is frustrated, because he wants to leave the gift on her desk for her to find later, but she won’t budge, and he has to leave before she does so that he can meet his mom after her students’ Christmas art show. So eventually he just swallows his nerves and walks up to Amy, badly-wrapped lump in hand.

“Um…Santiago?”

“Nnnn?” she humms, writing swiftly and yet neatly in a ledger. “One sec…okay, what’s up?”

Her eyes are big and brown and he’s losing it. “Uh…this…um…it’s for you. If you don’t like it, sorry, I tried not to suck.”

Jake shoves the package in her face, and before she can even say a word, he’s turned on his heel and run off to the break room.

The day that everyone comes back after the holiday break, Jake finds a short, heartfelt thank you note on his desk, the script flowing and elegant, clearly written with her new fountain pen.

* * *

 

May 10th is twenty weeks—Amy’s five-month mark. The day she converts to non-active duty, Jake comes in early and does a similar spiel to the one he ran with when Charles and Vivien broke up.

“Listen up, guys! No matter what this woman does or says, no matter how cranky she may be, treat her with kindness and compassion! If you are mean or unpleasant to her, in any way, I will rip your brain from its brain-socket and then burn your house to the ground. Okay thanks cool!”

However, Amy isn’t cranky; she’s bummed. From the moment she trudges into the precinct nearly three minutes past nine (Boyle stifles a gasp), Amy Santiago radiates misery. She doesn’t even perk up when Captain Holt announces the new font for the Nine-Nine’s email signature, and she’s been looking forward to that for weeks.

Everyone tries to help out: Terry offers her his cinnamon-and-nutmeg-infused yogurt (she can’t eat yogurt, it’s on the Pregnancy No-No List), Boyle shows her pictures of his dogs (this puts her in an even worse mood), and Gina French-braids her hair (this is actually helpful, if only because morning sickness has kicked in recently and this is the first time in a while her hair hasn't been styled to avoid splashes of vomit). Even Captain Holt pitches in, taking Amy out to lunch—or at least, sitting on the roof with her and watching the pigeons as they share a Nutrition Brick.

“Your girl is rough today,” Rosa says as she and Jake observe Amy and the Captain through the Venetian blinds. Jake sighs and rubs the back of his neck.

“I know. But don’t you fret, Rosa—”

“I wasn’t.”

“I got it all taken care.”

“Oh yeah?” Rosa raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Jakey’s gonna make his lady happy if it’s the last thing he does.”

“Nice.” She nods, smirking. “So hey, what’s it like boning while pregnant?”

“I—what?”

She shrugs. “I assume you’re talking about cheer-up sex, just wondering if the baby makes it weird. Like, can you get on top without squishing it? Does Amy have to ride every time? When she gets really big, like crazy big, is that when you start using a swing?”

Jake, unable to move forward with his life until this conversation ends, decides to simply walk away.

By three o’clock, Amy is very close to just putting her head down on her desk and never sitting back up again. Jake can tell, and that’s when he puts his plan in motion.

“Hey, Captain?” he says, sticking his head into Holt’s office. “Do you mind if I check out a little early today? I kinda want to take Amy somewhere special, get her mind off things.”

Holt taps his chin. “What about the Melman case?”

“Gave it to Terry for processing.”

“Your suspect on Franklin Avenue?”

“Charles has his statement, we’re talking to him tomorrow.”

“…all right, Peralta.” Holt nods. “You’re free to go. I hope you and Santiago have a nice evening.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jake starts to withdraw, but pauses. “We’re not having cheer-up sex, just so you know. I mean, we may be later, it’s totally possible, but that’s not the special somewhere I was talking about. If anything, we may be having thank-you sex _because_ of—”

“Peralta, do I have to suspend you?”

“No, sir.”

Half an hour and much, much driving later, Jake takes Amy’s hand and helps her out of the passenger side of the car. She’s not huge or anything yet, but the baby bump is definite and throwing off her center of gravity. Also, her legs are always sore. Also-also, she’s currently blindfolded.

“What the hell is going on, Jake? Are you taking me to some kind of naked photo shoot? I’m not doing a naked pregnant photo shoot.”

“Jesus Christ, Amy, no,” Jake says, rolling his eyes as he leads her carefully up the front steps. “Just trust me…and lift your foot, there’s a step there.”

He leads her through the front door, along a twisty passage, through another door, down some steps, and suddenly they’re in open air again. Amy frowns beneath her blindfold, then shrieks suddenly as she hears a familiar sound.

“Get down, Jake, get down!”

“Amy, stop, get off—damn it—” Jake yanks his arm free and pulls the blindfold off. Amy blinks as the afternoon light hits her eyes.

“I…what…where the hell are we?”

Jake steps back and opens his arms wide, grinning like a Halloween pumpkin. “Tada! Welcome to the Hudson Valley Outdoor Shooting Range, where everyone gets a shot at a shot!”

They’re standing on a wide-open field, which rises into a grassy, target-dotted hump several hundred feet away. To their right a ways are several worn but well-kept wooden stands with gun holsters hanging off them. Amy turns to see a cozy cabin-like building behind her, complete with a small wraparound porch. An older Asian woman wearing overalls and a knitted hat is sitting on the porch steps, cleaning a pistol; it was the sound of the pistol’s barrel clicking that had freaked Amy out so bad.

“Nice to meet you, Amy,” says the woman, her smile revealing a number of missing teeth. “I’m Zimo. Jake’s told me a lot about you.”

“Um—hi—nice to—Jake, what?” Amy turns on Jake, who’s still grinning with his arms spread. For the first time she notices he’s wearing a backpack.

“Zimo’s my old marksmanship coach! She taught me in the academy, then came up here and started this place…what, ten years ago?”

“Thirteen, Junior,” Zimo says, her eyes bright.

“Yeah, thirteen. She runs a really tight range, nobody sketchy, almost all cops or ex-cops who want somewhere private to stay in shape. Also, she makes a _mean_ turnip cake.”

“And horseradish vodka.”

“My wife’s pregnant, Mo.”

“I’m not.” Zimo pulls a small leather flask out of her pocket and takes a swig. Jake grins.

“She’s still a better shot drunk than most people sober.”

“Jake?” Amy asks, taking a very deep breath. “Why are _we_ here?”

For a second, Jake just stares blankly. Then his eyes light up. “Oh right!” Throwing the backpack on the ground, he unzips it and pulls out—

“A bathmat?”

“Correction: it _was_ a bathmat.” Jake has never looked so proud of himself, not even when he won a bet against Rosa and drank an entire two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper in under two minutes. The object he’s holding is flat and electric-blue and extremely fluffy: at first sight, and for all intents and purposes, a bathmat. “I got my mom to sew this stretchy fabric on the ends here, and put a layer of memory foam around the part that usually goes on the floor, and then she put these awesome snaps in, and so—lemme just—”

Before Amy knows what he’s doing, Jake has wrapped the bathmat around her, so that the fluffy blue mat part is snuggly sheathing her stomach, and then he pulls two long, flat elastic bands from either end back around her waist to meet at her spine, where he secures them using a series of little silver snaps. He stands back and proudly stares at the finished result, which is Amy looking like a police officer stuffed through the pelt of a Muppet.

“What the hell is this for?!” she demands. Jake’s face falls a little, as he slowly realizes that his brilliant plan has escaped her.

“Well…it’s for the baby. So that you can shoot without hurting its ears.”

“…shoot? I can shoot?”

“Here.” Jake takes her hand and pulls her gently over to one of the wooden stations. He takes out his service weapon, releases the clip into his palm, and hand it to her. “I asked Dr. Madavan, and after he said it would be okay I didn’t trust him so I looked it up online, and the internet told me it’s totally fine for you to practice your marksmanship as long as you make sure to protect the baby’s hearing, and also don’t clean the guns yourself. Oh, and take regular showers to avoid lead contamination from GSR.”

She’s still staring at him like he’s speaking in tongues. Jake wonders if the bathmat is cutting off blood circulation to her brain. “See? This way you can keep up your field skills even when you’re on desk duty. Zimo’s awesome, she’s always around and I told her you’re on my account, so you can come here whenever you want and y’all can just hang out and chill, and this way you won’t lose your edge. You’ll be the most badass pregnant detective ev—”

He doesn’t finish the word, because Amy is kissing him. She’s kissing him really hard, her hands not so much cradling his face as squeezing it, pulling him to her, and Jake has to lean forward and scoot his butt back the tiniest bit to make room for the baby bump but he couldn’t care less, because he can feel how happy Amy is, how much love is surging up and out of her and just how good he did right here, how right this call was. When she lets him go, she’s beaming, and there are tears in her eyes.

Zimo and Jake spend the next hour talking and eating turnip cake. Amy spends the next hour shooting things, happy as a clam.

That night, Amy and Jake do indeed have thank-you sex.

(After which Amy pukes most of the night and Jake sponges her off with a washcloth. Ah, the miracle of life.)

* * *

 

There’s one night, somewhere in the middle of all their time as friends and colleagues, that Jake and Amy work a double together.

In the beginning, it’s a little slow. Amy makes some tea and reads the departmental newsletter, Jake throws paper clips onto her desk just to make her look up and roll her eyes at him. They eat dinner: a Caesar salad for Amy, 10-piece Chicken McNuggets for Jake. Amy reorganizes her desk drawers for the third time that month and starts on a new binder for Interrogation Procedures, Part 2, Vol. 3. Jake disappears for fifteen minutes and then returns with a wet shirt, claiming that he knows nothing about the exploded pipe in the west stairwell that always _seemed_ to be a perfect chin-up bar.

But the thing is, it’s Amy. And it’s Jake. And they’ve known each other for too long and get along too well to keep their distance all night. So when she asks for his opinion on a series of drug collars, he helps her look for a pattern. And then they start talking about old cases. And then she gives him an outside perspective on the armed robber he’s tracking. And then they both decide they need ice cream and they’re gonna go hit up the bodega on the corner.

“What did you call them?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised, as they’re heading back down the street. The evening is cool, springtime just starting to settle in, and most people might say it’s not ice-cream weather. He and Amy aren’t most people.

“Jimmies.” Amy licks her pistachio-and-rainbow-sprinkles cone. Jake tries not to watch her tongue.

“You call sprinkles ‘jimmies’?”

“My mom grew up in Boston, she says it’s a New England thing.”

“There’s got to be a story behind that.”

“A story? Behind the word ‘jimmies’?” She shakes her head at him like he’s a naughty kid she’s babysitting. “Jake, it’s a word. Not everything is a case to solve.”

“ _False_ , Santiago! Everything is a case, and I am brilliant, therefore all cases will be solved by me.” Jake takes a big bite of his double-scoop chocolate-chip cookie dough and garbles, “Doo dah pweshinct!”

“What?”

“To the—ah! Ice cream headache, ice cream headache!”

They go back to the precinct, and Jake tracks down “jimmies”—it’s all about racism, because of course it is (“Damn it! Thanks for nothing, America!”). But then Amy starts telling him about the year she and her brothers spoke entirely in code, and Jake is just a tiny bit more interested than he is jealous, and so they pass a long while that way.

The call comes over dispatch sometime around ten-thirty: one of the suspects in a local electronics burglary ring has been spotted making a drop. Jake and Amy suit up and head out. On the way, Jake plays with the stereo.

“Stop it.”

“What, you don’t like Jay-Z?”

“I like Jay-Z, I just don’t like you—flipping through—everything—stop!” She swats his hands away from the unmarked car’s radio. “God, I feel so bad for your grade school teachers.”

“And I feel so bad for the man who tethers himself to you for life.”

“You wish,” she says, smirking.

“If by ‘wish’, you mean ‘dread with the cold dark horror of a thousand blizzards’, then yeah, I wish, sure.”

“And you’re going to marry who? That cartoon girl from the show about the turtle boys?”

“For the absolute last time, Santiago,” Jake says, his voice barely managing to stay measured, “they are not turtle _boys_ , they are turtle _mutants,_ and they are _teenagers_ , so even if they _weren’t_ mutants, they wouldn’t be boys!”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Amy says, shaking her head. “I forgot, it’s the Teenage Mutant Jumbo Turtles.”

“NINJA! THEY ARE NINJAS AND YOU KNOW IT!”

Amy keeps her eyes on the road, but Jake can see the corner of her mouth twitching. Jake changes the channel on the radio again and turns it on so loud that he can’t hear Amy giggling over the smooth musical stylings of Big Billy Blagny’s Banjo Band.

They arrive at the spot where the tip indicated the suspect is currently having a drink. Amy parks the car and goes in through the back alley entrance, while Jake heads through the front. The guy is sitting at the bar, a glass of beer in his hand; he takes one look at Jake and scrambles—right into Amy’s knee. Down like a ton of bricks.

“Keep the change,” Jake says, flipping a quarter towards the bar as Amy cuffs the perp. The quarter doesn’t quite make it to the bar, instead hitting someone’s shoe and rolling loudly off across the floor. Amy grinds her teeth and hauls their catch out towards the squad car.

Back at the Nine-Nine, they’re processing: Jake’s least favorite and Amy’s most favorite activity. Jake sits beside Amy in the break room, winding rubber bands around his rubber band ball while she fills out the forms, occasionally adding his signature whenever she asks him to (read: grabs his wrist and yanks his arm towards the paper).

“Santiaaaaaaaaaaago, I’m booooooored.”

“And that’s my problem why?” she growls, trying to ignore the snap of elastic. Jake presses a hand to his heart.

“That hurts, Amy. I thought we were friends. Buddies. Pals. Amigos.”

“Dare to dream.”

“Yeah, I knew it.” She looks up; he’s staring at her, brow furrowed, turning the ball slowly over in his hands. This is one of those moments where it’s totally impossible to tell if he’s being serious or screwing around.

“Knew what?”

“You’re secretly in love with me.”

“Shut up, Jake,” she says, and goes back to writing. A moment later, though, she has to stop, because of the terrible feeling that his face is an inch from her ear. Which it is.

“ _Jake!_ ”

“You are madly and passionately in love with me, and even working alongside me is torture—not least of all because I’m a bad boy cop with a brilliant inner beauty—actually, my beauty is both inner and outer, but you already knew that—but we can never truly be friends, Amy, because of how hot your fire burns for me. You want to date the hell out of this big hunky dude-hunk.”

Amy takes a deep breath. She stands up. She looks down at Jake, who’s smirking in that way only Jake Peralta can.

“Screw you, Peralta. I don’t date little boys.”

And then she’s gone, leaving the paperwork behind her.

They don’t speak for the rest of the night. Or for two days after. And when they do resume talking, they never mention that double shift every again.

* * *

 

She doesn't tell him this until years later, but one day Amy wakes up very early and she knows their baby is coming.

There’s no labor or anything. No contractions. She just knows that it’s their baby’s birthday, and the feeling shivers through her: from the top of her head, which has been perpetually stuffed up for weeks, down through the thousands aches and pains in her back, across the truly unbelievable expanse of her belly and hips, reaching all the way to her swollen ankles.

_Today._

Of course, she doesn’t really have time to enjoy it, because she has to pee. Again. Always. Every morning—no, every hour—she’s had to pee, or eat, or do a million other things that her body has suddenly decided are immediate functions, because growing a human is weird and unnatural and she can’t understand how her mother did this so many times.

Amy takes a deep breath and levers herself up from her nest of pillows in a practiced move. Beside her, Jake mumbles and shifts, his hand slipping off her thigh as she sits up. She smiles as she gazes down at him, that familiar swelling in her chest mixing with the tingle of excitement she’s already feeling. It’s impossible to imagine a more attentive or caring partner for this whole thing than Jake. Whenever she’s needed him, he’s been there: backrubs, footrubs, rides to the shooting range, buying endless souvlaki and croquetas and kettle corn to satisfy her cravings, doing laundry every time her weakened bladder failed. He never complains, never seems to get tired. Even when she farts on him or eats all his jellybeans.

(Not that he’s completely perfect. Try as Amy might, they’ve fallen off the Trimester Table mostly due to Jake’s reluctance to hold her to her deadlines. She’s told him time and again, discipline is as discipline does; his response is to drive one of his toy cars over the curve of her stomach and make zooming sounds, which is cute but ultimately unhelpful.)

Even though it’s easier to get up from bed with Jake’s help, Amy resolves to head to the bathroom alone. She refuses to be dependent on anyone, even if it’s been months since she’s seen her feet and her lower spine feels like a thousand sea urchins have taken up residence there. Waddling in, she uses the toilet, washes her hands, and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror: huge, round, tired…and something else. Something more. A shift in equilibrium.

_Today._

Amy remembers something her mother once told her; her nose immediately wrinkles at the thought, but once she’s had it, Luisa Santiago is there in her head, sipping tea, saying, “ _What can I tell you, mija, it works. I did it with you and all of your brothers, and those eight births were easier than my cousin Nina’s three!”_

“Damn it, Mama,” Amy mutters to herself as she rummages in the back of the bathroom cupboard (thank God it’s not under the sink, she’d never reach it on her own). Her hand finally bumps against the smooth glass bottle: castor oil, the world’s worst remedy for all things, which Amy’s mother force-fed all of her children when they were younger and which she has insisted, nay, demanded, that they keep in their own homes as adults.

 _“You want that baby to come out smooth, you take the castor oil,”_ says her mother in her head, and Amy wants to tell her Imaginary Mother to go to hell (she would die before telling her real mother that), but she’s Amy Santiago, and she follows rules. So she pours the noxious oil into the sippy cup they keep by the sink, closes her eyes, and forces it down.

_So much worse than she remembers…_

After rinsing the cup and her mouth out several times, Amy makes the long journey back to bed. Jake is sprawled on his stomach, head at an awkward angle, mouth open as he drools on the pillow. Her heart starts that double-beating, balloon-bursting thing again. Their baby is coming soon. Very soon. He doesn’t even know yet. This big goof with his ass in the air, making little snorting noises every time he exhales, is going to be a dad.

She moves to the bed and sits down carefully, running a hand over Jake’s shoulder. He wakes up almost immediately: a combination of police reflexes and my-wife-is-pregnant-never-rest-easy-again nerves. Bleary eyes blink up at her as she massages his stiff neck.

“You okay?” He’s asked her this every morning for weeks. And every morning she says—

“Okay times two.”

“Mmmm.” He rolls over onto his back and grabs her hand, bringing it to his lips. “What time is it?”

“Like five or so.”

“Oh man,” he groans, rubbing his forehead. “When did we fall asleep?”

“No idea.”

“Cool, me neither.” Jake begins to absently rub her belly. His fingers trace the shape of a tiny foot, pressing against the skin. Amy breathes in sharply. “Ames—did I hurt you?”

“What? No, no…that feels nice.” She presses his hand against her stomach. His gaze moves over her, tired but endlessly loving, and Amy feels the tingle deep inside. Knotting her fingers through his, she pulls gently on his hand; he gets the message and sits up, kissing her with warm, slightly chapped lips.

Jake has to arc forward to reach her over the curve of her belly, but Amy doesn’t care. She cradles his face and holds him close, breathing in his smell, enjoying even the morning breath. When he starts to pull back, she shakes her head and moves him down to her neck, breathing harder as she digs her fingernails into his shoulder. He seems surprised—there hasn’t been too much like this going on recently—but he certainly doesn’t pass up the chance, nipping and biting at the smooth skin there and running his tongue over the sensitive hollows near her ear. Amy moans, her fingers sliding into his hair. Her other hand is in his lap, pressing, stroking.

“Amy…what’re you…”

“Can we?” Her voice is rough and low; as he sucks on her ear, Amy can feel Jake hesitating, struggling to decide the more responsible route. “Please, Jake. It’s not gonna hurt the baby…and I want you.”

“Um…how would we…I mean, I want you too, I’m just not sure what’s the best—”

“Here.” She moves away from him and stands, shrugging off the massive T-shirt that she sleeps in (a gift from Terry, thankfully with no racist overtones). Jake’s eyes get that familiar spark as he stares at her breasts, which have gotten _so much bigger oh my God_ in the last few months (Amy finds them a little frightening, actually, since they weren’t exactly small before; Jake just likes to hide his head in them and make Darth Vader sounds). “Get naked.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, grinning, as he strips off his own pajamas. Amy bites her lip as she watches him—how is it possible that her body has changed so much and his has stayed almost the same—and then walks up to the bed. Jake sits on the edge of the mattress so that he’s just about face-to-face with her chest; looking up at her, no longer grinning but with just the right amount of awe, he starts to suck and stroke her breasts, taking care to be exceedingly gentle because of her hypersensitivity. Amy moans and her head falls back; she wants to look at him, but the feeling of his tongue roaming up and down her skin, the whisper of his careful hands on her swollen nipples, is almost too much to bear. She wobbles on her feet, clutching his shoulders. Jake hums and runs the tip of his tongue across the underside of her right breast, circles the nipple, moves to the center and traces the dip over her sternum before repeating the path on the left.

Amy can’t stop herself: she grabs his hand and brings it between her legs (not that she can see or even remember where that is), down to where she’s wet and hot and practically quivering. He starts massaging her, his fingers long and rough, the pad of his thumb swiping relentlessly over her clit. She whimpers and runs the tips of her fingers in hard strokes up and down his back.

“Oh God…Jake…”

“You okay?” he asks, and she actually rolls her eyes, because _yes_ , she’s okay, she’s horny as hell and he’s making her feel so _good_ , just because she’s pregnant doesn’t mean every sound she makes is a complaint about back pain. (Her back does ache a little, but then it always does.)

“I’m fine. What about you? Are you…”

“What?”

“Are you hard?” He raises an eyebrow at her. “I can’t see over the belly, Jake!”

“Does this answer your question?” Jake draws her closer, so that her stomach is almost bumping him in the face, but he’s not the only one being bumped; she can feel his cock, hard and hot, poking into her thigh. They grin at each other.

“Get on the bed.” He does as she says, clambering backwards, his erection bobbing beneath him. He starts to lie down, but she shakes her head. “On your knees.”

Jake’s eyes widen as he understands where this is going, and he helps her get into position on her hands and knees, the belly swinging low, her back arched with the weight. Amy groans as her spine twinges all over, and Jake starts his customary backrub.

“Never mind, just get inside, please,” she hisses, and she can hear him chuckle behind her, and then his fingers are there again, probing her, spreading her—“Do we need lube?” “If we need it, we’ll get it, now _please_ , Jake”—and then—

He’s home. Amy’s head drops, her breath huffs out of her as the stretch comes, and then Jake is _there_ , he’s so much, he’s filling up all the space inside of her, and she’s already so full, she’s carrying this child who’s taking up so much of her body, and now there’s Jake too, and it’s such an overwhelming feeling, her mouth is open but there’s no noise, she can’t make a sound, no sound is big enough to express how it feels to have her child and her husband inside of her—

“Amy? Amy!” Jake’s voice breaks through her trance. He sounds worried, and his hands are warm on her sides. Amy swallows, blinks, and comes back to herself. She looks over her shoulder through a haze of matted black hair and sees Jake frowning down at her. He’s trembling a little from the urge to move, but his whole focus is on her.

“I’m here,” she says, and her voice is soft, but it’s whole. “I love you. Don’t stop.”

Jake doesn’t start to thrust until he’s sure: sure that she means it, sure that she’s happy, sure that this is a good thing. When he does push farther into her, Amy can tell that every muscle is under tight control. He’s making it about her pleasure, not his own, and she loves him for that. But she also wants this to be for both of them. So as he strokes in again, she clenches down around him, bearing pressure, the way she knows always drives him crazy. The “Uh!” that huffs out of him tells her this time is no exception.

Amy closes her eyes, letting the rhythm take her: Jake’s steady stroke, her own pull and release of inner muscles, the energy flow between their two bodies. It’s carrying her higher and higher, she’s already so sensitive, and the sound of Jake’s skin slapping against hers is going straight through her—

Suddenly she gasps. Jake shudders and stops, panting. “W-what is it, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She exhales a long breath and reaches back, rubbing his thigh reassuringly. “The baby’s just kicking, that’s all.”

“Kicking?” Jake’s eyes go wide. “Oh my God, was I poking the baby’s face? Did I hurt it? Is it mad? Amy help—”

“No, honey, you’re fine. It’s a happy kick,” she says, pushing her hair over one shoulder. “Just keep going.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He does begin again, slowly, and then harder and faster as the sensations start to take over, and Amy goes down on her elbows, her forehead pressed into the mattress as Jake fucks her with all the tenderness and passion that he’s ever felt, that has led to this child she’s carrying, and she slips one hand back to splay across the tight, stretched skin of her abdomen, where she can feel that thumping, dark-blue little kick—

Jake comes first (not surprising, it’s been a while for both of them but longer for him), moaning and jerking behind her, and she’s so happy that he feels good, that she can give that to him—but she’s even happier when his trembling fingers reach up around her leg and under her belly, working over her, and while he’s just beginning to soften she shudders and whimpers and lets the waves of pleasure wash over her.

The orgasm is strong and takes its time ending, leaving her panting and sweaty. She tips to the side and Jake catches her; she feels him slip out, winces at the customary gush and squelch of warm liquid, but quickly lets herself get lost in his embrace as he gently eases her backwards between his bent legs, her back to his chest. He kisses her ear and rubs his thumb over some of her many stretchmarks.

“You good?” he breathes. Amy laughs shakily.

“Yeah. You?”

“So good.”

“Love you,” she whispers.

“Love you too.”

Jake sighs and rests his head against hers. They sit for a couple minutes, getting their breath back, trading heartbeats.

Then suddenly, Amy feels it coming. She wants to stop it, she really does, but she’s thirty-eight-and-a-half weeks pregnant, so the cause is already lost. Before she can even warn Jake, Amy farts on him.

It’s a loud one too.

Jake is howling with laughter almost immediately, and even though Amy tries to be ashamed, they’ve been through so much together, and so much worse, that she can’t really manage it. She just hangs her head and smiles ruefully as her husband wriggles out from behind her, laughing so hard he's practically in tears, and chokes out a garbled offer to give her the first shower.

Later, under the spray of hot water, watching the soap suds roll down the endless curve of her pregnant belly, Amy closes her eyes and feels that insistent bump against her skin again. The baby knows too.

_Today._

* * *

 

Jake is proud of himself.

He knows everyone expected him to freak out. Which is insulting, honestly, since he was totally on top of everything when Ava was born—meanwhile Gina and _Terry_ , her _father_ , were losing their minds, thanks very much—and he’s also a brilliant detective slash genius, so the birth of his first child? Easy-peasy.

Although he kind of expected himself to freak out a little bit. Like, it would have made sense.

When Amy’s eyes go glassy and her breathing gets heavy, Jake does feel some pangs of panic. The baby isn’t due for another week and a half, it's entirely possible that he angered the baby by poking it in the face with his dick during their awesome sex this morning, and he _still_ hasn’t successfully put together that mobile with the tiny police cars and badges on it that Sharon gave him and Amy for a shower present! What will his baby think of him now, terrible father that he is, who can’t even assemble a mobile?

However, he shoves these feelings aside, like the professional he is, and gets to work Being Supportive. First they confirm, yes, Amy _is_ having contractions, and then Amy convinces him that they don’t need to rush to the hospital, they just need to start timing them. This seems like a smart plan, until Charles volunteers to be the timer and parks himself literally on Amy’s desk, staring down at her, clutching a stopwatch “so as to accurately catch the beginnings of uterine movement.”

Things are a little better after Jake gets Amy some tea and Rosa puts Charles in the holding cell.

But then Amy’s contractions start to speed up—really speed up—like nine minutes to five minutes in an hour—and Jake turns around for just a sec, to tell Gina to "stop SnapChatting this beautiful and terrifying event", when Amy gasps and jerks and says, “I think…my water just broke…maybe?”

The rest of the day is a blur: Terry carrying Amy out of the precinct, Rosa’s reenactment of all seven _Fast & Furious _movies while driving them in a cruiser to the hospital, nurses in scrubs and cheerful Dr. Madavan welcoming them in his Tamil accent, Amy telling him to calm down and breathe— _she’s_ telling _him_ to calm down _,_ what the hell, maybe he is freaking out—and then his mom’s voice on the phone, quiet but excited, while he paces in the hallway outside Amy’s room.

“You’re kidding! Seven centimeters?”

“They said she’s ready to push when it’s ten, but that can’t be right, can it? Ten centimeters? That’s like almost a foot, that’s insane, is our baby a foot wide, Mom?”

“Centimeters, honey, not inches.”

“Oh.” Jake leans his head against the wall. “Right.” He takes a deep breath and nearly gags; that hospital smell is pretty strong. “God, Mom, this is really it.”

“You bet your ass it is, hon. Are you excited?”

“That’s one word for it.”

His mom chuckles on the other end. “Oh yeah, I know that feeling. Don’t worry, it goes away.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”

Karen laughs again. “Sorry, I just…I can’t believe my little boy is going to have his own little boy now.”

“Or girl.”

“You really don’t know the sex?”

“Amy wanted to wait. And then she went crazy and tried to bribe the doctor to tell us, but I wrestled her down.”

“Good for you two. It’s incredible, that first moment, when you look down at this little person and you realize…”

Jake pauses in his pacing. “Mom? Realize what?”

“Oh, honey.” Karen’s voice is soft. “You’re gonna know so soon.”

When Jake gets back in, Amy is lying there, her legs up in those weird metal things, shiny with sweat but looking sublimely peaceful. He goes to her and strokes her hair; his reward is a pair of big brown eyes, wide and unbelievably bright, staring up at him.

“Your mom happy?”

“Thrilled. She sends her love and says good luck.”

“Thanks.” Amy sighs. “My parents are catching the next train back from Boston. Mom’s all upset but I think Dad’s glad she’s not here to make a fuss.”

“I mean, eight kids. The lady might be all fussed out.”

“Nope. Not my mom.” Amy grabs his hand and hisses with pain as another contraction hits. Jake squeezes back and tries not to let his face twist in agony. When it passes and she collapses back, panting, he keeps hold of her hand.

“Hey Ames.”

“Yeah?” She looks back up, already exhausted and yet more alive than he’s ever seen her.

“Lotta change around here, huh?”

She snorts and sticks her tongue out at him.

He’ll remember that silly face an hour later, when the labor has torn her in half, when she can barely lift her head up and her face is beet-red, when she’s staring at him through tear-filled eyes and she begs, “ _Please, please, please, I’m so tired, please…”_ and he can’t give her anything but a hand to hold. He can’t take over for her, he can’t be her partner here, all he can do is touch her and say “ _This is it, you got it, you got it, you’re Amy Santiago, you can do anything, I love you, you got it”_ and hate the doctor who won’t let her stop, the midwife who pushes and prods and rolls her from side to side, and just when he thinks the world may actually have invented something that Amy Santiago cannot do—

There’s a flurry of movement.

Something falls to the floor with a splat.

And then

And then

And then

A baby is crying.

Their son is crying.

Jake’s first glimpse of him is fleeting: blotchy, bruise-colored, oblong and shiny, like an eggplant or a purple football. He catches the glint of black hair—lots of it—and hears the words, “It’s a boy,” and “Nice set of lungs on him!” and then there’s a doctor standing in the way, and suddenly he realizes that Amy has collapsed, she’s not moving, and Jake’s world is spinning violently in all directions, standing alone in this bright room that smells of blood and surgical steel, while people move around him and his wife lies motionless.

His instincts take over, the way they always have. First, Amy, his partner: make sure she’s alive, check her status, protect her. He moves towards her, but is stopped by a small redheaded woman in blue scrubs.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks, and his voice only shakes a little.

“She’s all right, Mr. Peralta,” says the woman, her voice firm but kind. “Labor’s a great strain on the body, it’s very common for women to lose consciousness afterwards. She also lost some blood from the tearing—”

“Tearing?”

“We’re taking care of that right now,” she continues, and over her shoulder he can see Dr. Madavan between Amy’s legs, two nurses at his side, working with a suture. “We’re replenishing the blood and her fluids as well. With a little rest, she’ll be completely fine.”

Jake’s gut has always told him not to trust what he can’t see for himself, but in this case, he has no choice (as well as no medical degrees). His mind immediately switches gears and he whirls around just in time to see a nurse step towards him, holding what looks like a bundle of blankets dotted with pink and blue balloons.

“Mr. Peralta,” says the young man, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles, “we've cut the cord and his airways are clear. Would you like to hold your son?”

Jake’s heart must still be beating, but he can’t feel it; he must still be breathing, but there seems to be no air in the world. Somehow, he manages to nod, because a moment later the nurse is right up close, showing him how to position his arms, and then—all of a sudden—

There he is.

His eyes are closed tight and his face is squished, like a bunch of Play-Doh, but Jake can already tell that the kid has Amy’s nose and mouth (thank _God_ ). His ears, though? All baby Jake, easily recognizable from Karen Peralta’s many photo albums. He’s been wiped clean and someone has put a little mint-green knit cap on his head, but wild tufts of black hair are peeking out from underneath. He’s breathing deeply and snuffling a little like Amy does when she falls asleep in the middle of a movie. Moving slowly, so slowly, Jake slides his right hand up and touches his son’s café-con-leche skin: the unbearable softness of his cheek, his chin, his tiny hand—

Baby fingers curl around Jake’s pinky, squeezing tight.

Jake can’t come back from this moment. Not ever. And that’s so totally, incredibly, amazingly _noice_.

“Jake…” Her voice is thin and uncertain, but when he turns around Amy is really awake, shifting to sit further up in her bed. Her face is still pale and clammy from the labor, though the bag of blood hanging above her on the IV does seem to be giving her some color back, and Dr. Madavan has finished whatever he was doing further down. Jake wonders if (when) she’ll start to get sore.

“Hey, Detective Santiago,” he says, and he’s surprised to hear his voice catch. Suddenly he realizes there are tears in his eyes. He’d had no idea he was crying. “Meet the newest man on the squad.”

Amy’s eyes widen and drop to the bundle in his arms. He goes to the side of the bed and hands over his—their— _her_ son, his finger sliding out of the tight little grip, and Amy makes a funny sound like she’s going to hiccup as she gently cradles the baby and holds him against her sweaty chest. Jake wraps his arm around her and kisses her head again and again as he watches her stroke their child’s face.

“Oh my God, he’s so awesome,” she whispers, and Jake nods.

“I know, right?”

“I can’t believe I got him out.” Amy’s tone is reverent, and Jake wonders if she doubted herself, the way he doubted her just for a second. He holds her that much tighter and knows that no matter what other secrets are kept and told and then kept again, he’ll take that one to his grave.

“So what are we naming him?” she says, her fingers still playing across the soft black fluff on his head. Jake rests his chin on her own black hair and hums to himself.

“Well…what were we thinking earlier?”

“You still wanna do that thing?”

“I mean, if you do.”

She looks up at him. “I do.”

* * *

 

By the end of the day, Andrés Santiago-Peralta has had more visitors than he can count. And he can’t even count yet.

Charles and Gina are the first ones in, mostly because they were already in the waiting room and Gina promised Jake she’d do the unenviable job of keeping Charles from flipping his shit. However, he’s admirably in control: at the sight of Jake and Amy in a bed together, holding their firstborn child, Charles doesn’t squeal or shriek or dance around, or do any other insane, Charles-y things they expected him to do.

(He looks a little faint, but Gina jabs him in the butt with one sharp fingernail and that wakes him up pretty quick.)

When Charles first hold Andrés, he starts crying immediately. And honestly, Jake gets a little teary too. Just the way Boyle looks down at his kid, the way he holds him, and Charles has been pushing him towards Amy since the beginning, if it weren’t for him…

When Gina holds Andrés, she snaps her gum and says, “Lord, but he smells like an uptown Sephora, don’t he?”

Uncle Charles and Aunt Gina head out after about fifteen minutes, leaving behind a massive gift basket full of gourmet chocolates, tiny stuffed animals, and artisan shampoos (Charles) and a giftstore hairbrush (Gina). Jake’s mom shows up right afterwards, with a big bouquet of flowers and a stack of drawings from her third-graders. She kisses them both and sings Jake’s old favorite lullaby to Andrés.

“ _Picture yourself in a boat on a river, where rockinghorse people eat marshmallow pies…”_

“Mom, why did you used to sing me to sleep with Beatles’ songs about LSD?”

“Because I was a mom so I couldn’t drop acid anymore, sweetie. Next best thing.” Her eyes twinkle at him through her big glasses. “Just kidding.”

“I think he looks like Jake, don’t you, Karen?” Amy says. Karen smiles.

“Definitely the ears. I think most of the face is you, dear.”

Jake reaches out and runs a thumb over Andrés’ hand. “The charm with the ladies is all me, though.”

Amy snorts.

Half an hour later, it’s Terry and Sharon’s turn.

“Amy, he’s gorgeous,” Terry coos, rocking Andrés gently back and forth. Generally, Jake would panic at the sight of the world’s largest man holding his tiny, fragile baby; however, he’s also aware that Terry’s arms are possibly the safest place his child will ever be.

“How much does he weigh?” Sharon asks.

“Eight pounds three ounces, twelve point seven inches long, perfect hearing, squishy head,” Jake answers automatically. Amy rolls her eyes.

“He has our baby’s stats memorized.”

“I also know his batting average. It’s zero, because he’s a baby.”

“Has he opened his eyes yet?” asks Terry, handing Andrés back to Amy. She shakes her head, her eyes growing wide.

“Not yet. Why, is that bad? Oh my God, it’s bad, isn’t it? Have I failed him already?”

Sharon smiles and makes gentle shushing noises as she pushes the braid that Gina put into Amy's hair earlier back behind her shoulder. “It’s totally normal. He’s had a long day too. Every baby moves at their own pace.”

“Yeah, and our baby’s pace is ‘ridonkulously awesome’, right Ames?” Jake says, holding up his hand for a high five. She glares at him and turns back to Sharon.

“But when’s _average_ for stuff like this? Should I be worried if he hasn’t opened his eyes by tonight? I’m still terrified of nipple confusion, and then there’s this whole stroller versus Snuggie debate—”

“Amy,” Sharon says soothingly, rubbing Amy’s arm. “This feeling you have right now, of rising panic?”

“Yeah?” Amy replies urgently.

“There’s literally no answer I can give you that will make it go away.” Sharon smiles and kisses Amy’s cheek. “You’re gonna make mistakes and get scared and you’ll still be a great parent. You both will be,” she adds, glancing at Jake. “Just love your child and hope for the best.”

Amy sighs. “Thanks, Sharon. That means a lot.”

Of course, she changes her tune the second Sharon is out the door. “Is she friggin’ crazy? ‘Hope for the best,’ pssht, as if! Mama’s gonna make you a brand-new binder to protect you from all danger, yes she is, yes she is!”

Jake decides that his wife has been through enough today, and if she wants to engage in crazed baby-talk with their infant son about protective binders, well, she’s earned it.

Kylie drops in for a quick visit, mostly to kiss and hug them both and to coo over Andrés with as much sincerity as she can muster (she's not much of a baby-person). However, she's not a best friend for nothing, and before she leaves she presents them with a handknit baby blanket, covered in a pattern of elemental symbols. Amy cries and Kylie rolls her eyes. "You can't knit for shit, baby, consider it a mercy," she says.

Then Amy naps for a while, and Jake hangs out with Andrés. The little guy is so…well, _little:_ he’s delicate and teeny, needle-thin veins visible through his soft brown skin, and Jake is breathless at the thought of how dependent this child is on him. Without him, Andrés would be so vulnerable. He would be alone.

Jake has always known that when he has kids, he’ll be a better father to them than his father was to him, but not until this moment does he really understand what that means. Looking at his son now, he can’t imagine anything that he wouldn’t be happy to suffer for Andrés. There’s nothing that he wouldn’t give up, nothing he wouldn't go through. Jake Peralta has done a lot of unusual things, but until this moment he has never realized just powerful unconditional trust can be. This baby trusts his father, to love him and raise him and make him a life.

He can at least meet Andrés halfway.

Amy wakes up just as Andrés starts to fuss, which is good, because Jake has no idea what to do. She’s got a somewhat frightened look on her face, but she sets her jaw and cradles Andrés against her, easing her breast towards him, muttering to herself in a mixture of Spanish and English, coaxing both of them to be calm and work together.

It works. Kind of. Andrés needs a couple (read: seven) tries, and Amy’s getting frustrated, and Jake is about to suggest that they retreat to separate corners and try again in a month or so, when suddenly Amy’s face floods with relief as the baby-squeals cease and instead a warm and sweet snuffling fills the room. Jake eases himself onto the side of the bed as Amy ever-so-carefully adjusts Andrés and leans back into her pillows, her breath coming in long, peaceful sighs.

That’s when Rosa comes in. She takes one look at the nursing baby, nods, and says, “Cool.” Then she hands Jake a small wrapped present and leaves.

(The present turns out to be a silver picture frame that has _Our Family_ embossed on the bottom. Never let anyone claim that Rosa Diaz is anything but a softie, underneath all the black leather and deathly rage.)

The last visit is the one that Jake has been looking forward to and fearing in equal parts. They’ve just gotten off the phone with Amy’s parents (and four of her brothers’ families), reassuring them that all is well and many pictures will be forthcoming, when there’s yet another knock at the door.

“Please tell me visiting hours are almost over,” Amy moans as Jake hauls himself off the bed. “It’s nice that everyone’s coming by, but I’m super-sore and I want to sleep for a million years.”

“ _You_ want to sleep? I think I’ve earned a little rest, Ames, I’ve had a very hard day,” Jake says, and she replies with a vulgar phrase just as he opens the door to reveal Captain Holt and Kevin.

“Captain! Kevin! Welcome to the birth!” Jake ushers them in, clasping Holt’s hand and then Kevin’s. Amy has gone red, and just then Jake remembers that her breast is still hanging out from when she finished feeding Andrés; he clears his throat and _very_ subtly steps in front of her while she readjusts her hospital gown. “So nice of you guys to drop by!”

“Yes, well, we wanted to say congratulations,” Holt says, his voice customarily flat and measured. He offers the flower arrangement. “Congratulations.”

“We’re so happy for both of you,” Kevin says warmly, and Jake grins at him.

“Thanks, Kev.”

Kevin hesitates, then decides to give it to him. “…you’re welcome, Jacob.” He glances over Jake’s shoulder. “How are you doing, Amy?”

“Oh, I’m wondrous, thank you, Kevin,” Amy says, her voice doing that overly chipper thing it always does when Holt and Kevin are around. Jake rolls his eyes and takes Kevin and Holt’s arms, pulling them over to the hospital bed.

“You guys wanna see the little nugget?”

“Are you referring to your son?” Holt asks. Jake doesn’t bother to respond, because for once he’s got a trump card—a cute-baby trump card. Carefully hoisting Andrés out of his bassinette, he turns and presents him to Holt and Kevin.

Kevin immediately melts: “Oh my, he’s just adorable. May I?”

“Sure, Kev. Just make sure you get his head.” Jake hands his son over and Kevin starts cooing, rocking the baby and making silly faces. It’s super-unsettling to see the usually brusque professor getting all gooey, and Jake exchanges a wide-eyed look with Amy.

But then things get even weirder, when a moment later, Kevin looks up and says to Holt, “Why don’t you hold him, Raymond?”

Holt’s mouth falls open. Jake doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so off-balance. “I—um—well—I’m not sure I can—it may not be appropriate to—”

“You should hold him, Captain,” Jake says, and he means it. More than that, he wants it.

Beside him, Amy nods. “We would love that.”

Holt swallows, eyeing Andrés. Slowly, he reaches out towards Kevin, his arms wide and uncertain. Jake gently guides his hands into place, and Kevin deposits the baby into his husband’s embrace.

The sight of Holt holding his child sparks something deep inside of Jake. He feels like his eyes are burning, like he wants to cry and laugh at the same time, like his heart is turning over and over inside of him. Holt’s eyes are actually soft around the edges as he looks down at the chubby little face, and he bounces a bit on his heels. His lips quirk up in a smile.

“He’s a handsome boy,” he says softly, his voice a little rough. Jake feels Amy’s fingers thread through his.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Have you decided on a name yet?” Kevin asks. Jake swallows and nods, glancing at Amy again; she meets his eyes.

“Yes, we have,” she says. “His first name is Andrés, after my grandfather. He served on the force, taught me the stuff that mattered, he kind of helped raise me…he was really just one of the best people I ever knew.”

“Sounds like a worthy namesake,” Holt says, his focus still on the baby.

Jake takes a deep breath. “Yeah…that’s why his middle name comes from someone who meant the same to me.” Holt looks up at Jake. “Andrés Raymond Santiago-Peralta.”

Aside from a small gasp from Kevin, the room is quiet. Nobody speaks for a very long time. Nobody even moves. Holt stands there, looking at Jake, holding Jake’s son, being a part of Jake’s world in a way that is so deeply real and important that it can only be family.

Eventually, Holt clears his throat and looks back down at Andrés’ face. He seems like he’s about to say something significant, but what he actually says, in a tone of surprise, is, “Oh…look here. His eyes are open.”

Jake doesn’t think before he’s practically snatching the baby out of Holt’s arms, scooting in next to Amy, leaning over Andrés to gaze into a pair of big, searching, dark, dark, dark brown eyes.

Not his eyes.

Not Amy’s eyes.

Andrés’ eyes.

He and Amy barely respond to Kevin and Holt’s murmured goodbyes, or to the sound of the door closing behind them. They’re too busy saying hello to their new baby, waving, talking, laughing, introducing themselves as Mami and Dada.

That night, while Andrés lies swaddled in his basinette beside the bed, Amy and Jake curl up in the hospital bed and sleep dreamlessly. Like parents, like partners, like two people on a mission, they sleep.

And soon, they’ll wake up together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, I did NOT mean to let this story sit alone for so damn long. I'm sorry it took forever, and I'm also sorry that you ended up with almost 20k words, which is just insane, because I'M insane. This is what happens when you wait most of a season to finish one final chapter of a frickin' fic.
> 
> Anyways, a note on any factual complaints you may have here: I did and do a lot of research on my fics, but if I've skipped something or referred to something incorrectly, please pardon me. I'm not an OBGYN or a gun expert or anything else, really, I just have an overly vivid imagination. So please bear with me on certain things. (Some stuff I know is wrong and fudged it a little to make the story better, I'm a writer sorry, BYYYYYYYYYYE)
> 
> Anyways, I clearly love these characters and their lives, even if I don't own them. Whatever happens to the Nine-Nine, I'm glad Mike Schur and Dan Goor and all the rest gave them to us with such love and care.


End file.
